


Hic Sunt Draconis

by exactly13percent (superagentwolf)



Series: The AU Court [13]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter 11 - Horror, Chapter 11 - Torture, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, High Fantasy, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-06-29 20:38:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superagentwolf/pseuds/exactly13percent
Summary: Andrew is just trying to keep Kevin alive when an elf jumps into the fray, flashing daggers and blue eyes. He hires the Foxes to help him catch a demon from his past, but it starts to feel less like he's the client and more like he's the protection. Andrew hates how entranced he is by the scarred rogue, with magic on his skin and a tongue as silvered as the city's statues.It's a good thing Andrew needs something to hold his interest. Neil is doing his best to meet the expectation, whether anyone asked for it or not.





	1. Prologue

_Inspired by[karasawr's](http://karasawr.tumblr.com/) Foxhole AU sketch series and [Neil's design](http://karasawr.tumblr.com/post/176498055941/neil-love-ur-art-333)._

 

* * *

 

Kevin sighs dramatically and Andrew feels his left eye twitch. “We’re going again? This went nowhere, last time.”

“We have gone out once,” Seth says, irritated. Not that he’s raring to go. Andrew knows Seth would probably rather be beating something with the giant maul strapped to his back.

The idea of crawling around the city’s alienage in the middle of the night is unappealing to all of them.

Unfortunately, they need money. Without money, there’s no way out of the situation they’re in. Wymack requires all boarders to submit some form of income, and the man’s small haven is full of strays. If he takes any more in, there won’t be room.

In which case, money will determine who stays and how much privacy they have. Both things Andrew cannot risk.

“Let’s go,” Seth says. He waves a hand, irritated.

Andrew should probably point out that they need someone else. After all, two magic users and a warrior don’t exactly make a well-rounded team.

Too late.

Kevin is already leading the way toward the alienage. It’s dark out, the moon above them full and silvery. Andrew runs his fingers reflexively over the black leather that covers his forearms. The texture is a reminder, the same as the little vials of blood across his chest that he taps next.

“What house is it?” Kevin asks. He is agitated, fiddling with the strap of the spellbook that hangs over his hip. Andrew has never met another sorcerer quite as…sorcerer-y, as Kevin. He’s amusing, with his deep blue colors and the feathers that flutter on his shoulders.

Seth jerks his head, indicating. “I wouldn’t call these houses.”

Kevin snorts but doesn’t reply. They are in dangerous territory; the alienage is just another part of undertown, where street gangs and thieves’ guilds run rampant. It’s not the kind of place you should walk around at night.

Unless you’re a Fox.

Andrew is thinking about other things, obviously—he always is—and he almost doesn’t notice the shadow around the hovel they are walking toward. But, he does. “Kevin.”

“Where?”

“Where do you think?”

Kevin crosses his arms and worries at his bottom lip. He pauses by a statue and Seth impatiently taps his fingers against his waist. Finally, Kevin says, “Let’s go.”

Andrew’s already moving toward the doorway. He feels the hum of the little blood vials; the way they seem to heat at his touch. It’s an elusive magic and there’s always the underlying threat of it getting away from him.

Not that it ever would. Andrew was christened in blood. It can’t control him anymore.

“Left,” Kevin murmurs. Andrew comes back to himself just in time to follow direction and splinter off toward the left side of the shack.

There are, predictably, people within. It’s not the first time they have come to a place and found an ill-planned ambush. Andrew contents himself with the routine of calling up his magic.

Wymack has berated him before, for being wasteful. Andrew doesn’t see it that way. Not when he crushes a delicate vial in his hand, little shards pricking his skin and drawing fresh drops. Blood runs through his fingers and he casts silently, because it is the only way he can. It’s not an impressive feat of dedication; it’s how he works. The blood drips quietly and crackles on the way down. It never meets the ground—instead, it sparks and jumps. Attaches itself to the greater web of the spell, and the target that Andrew picks.

Andrew muses five minutes in that they really should have a healer with them. Renee would probably never come out, but maybe they could wrangle Nicky. He’s got some basic healing power.

“Done?” Kevin asks, peering in from the doorway. Andrew doesn’t answer the obvious question. “I couldn’t find anything. Same as last time.”

“Money isn’t nothing,” Seth says from the other room, irritated.

Kevin rolls his eyes. “Let’s go.”

They barely make it to the statue in the center of the alienage before someone appears. Andrew doesn’t recognize the man, but he recognizes the black hum around him. _Necromancer._ A problem, if it gets out of hand. Skeletons coming out of the ground are distracting.

“I suppose you will have to do,” the man says. He laughs darkly and Andrew tenses. That kind of line is reserved for the type of people with Plans, and they are usually Bad. Bad for Andrew, at least.

No one gets the chance to act. No one but the slim figure that suddenly appears, flashing electric blue and silver. There is a rustle of white cloth and Andrew doesn’t track the movement; only the result.

The necromancer falls to the ground with his throat slit.

Andrew watches the intruder’s wrists flick, slender and delicate things despite their obvious strength. The daggers held in those hands gleam black and Andrew finds it hard to swallow.

His first reaction is a flood of unbidden attraction.

Of course, Andrew shoves it back and tries to focus. It is difficult, when the figure turns their head and Andrew sees the half-mask they wear. It covers the bottom half of their face, dark metal twisted to look like a wolf’s maw—and above it, there are two unearthly blue eyes. Blue eyes framed by feathery lashes, with strands of red-brown hair falling over tanned skin.

“Who are you?” Kevin demands.

The figure pauses. Hesitates, but finally reaches for their hood and pulls it down. It’s an elf, Andrew notices. He has odd marks everywhere; scars that trace patterns on his skin. The stranger pulls the mask down and he has stupidly pretty lips. A nice nose.

He is beautiful. But like the daggers, there’s an edge to him. To his beauty.

The blood in Andrew’s hand itches. He clenches his fist tighter.

“Neil,” the stranger says. He observes the three men before him; shifts his weight between his feet. He is not flighty; rather, he is prepared. “You are—”

“Foxes,” Kevin says, before Neil can finish. Andrew almost smacks Kevin’s head but settles on silence. He can berate Kevin for his lack of foresight later. “That doesn’t tell me who you are. Why are you here?”

“Foxes,” Neil echoes. There is recognition in his bright eyes. He fiddles subconsciously with his daggers; the flourish he performs is like breathing. He doesn’t look. Just twists his fingers and flicks his wrists. Little spots of blood flick onto the ground and then Neil sheathes the daggers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would send you.”

“What? You brought us here?” Seth’s jaw clenches and his hand twitches on the grip of his maul.

Neil drops to the ground. His knees hit the dirt and he absently flicks back the necromancer’s jacket, fishing around. Andrew wonders if the rogue is picking the dead man’s pocket. “I did,” he says. “But not intentionally. I asked Dorman to send his worst to the alienage. I was trying to draw someone out.”

Andrew leans against the statue’s base. “So, we were a distraction.”

Neil’s eyes flick to him. Andrew fights the feeling of being held in place by those eyes. He hates his reaction to Neil’s gaze. He doesn’t want it. Shouldn’t—

—well.

“Yes,” Neil says. “I’m sorry. I—”

“You could have just asked,” Kevin says, irritated.

Neil raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“We are Foxes. This is what we do. We—”

“This is not your problem,” Neil says, but he seems more like he’s talking to himself. Maybe he’s trying to convince himself that it’s the truth, or maybe he is reminding himself that help is not needed. Whatever the case, he finds what he is looking for in the necromancer’s jacket.

Andrew looks at the elf, while Neil reads the paper. He really is beautiful, despite the scars. Andrew can already guess that that the elf is a troublemaker. He has the disconnected air of someone that doesn’t quite live in the world.

“This is ridiculous,” Seth finally says. “All of this runaround, and for what? So that you can draw someone out of the shadows? I don’t believe you. There are simpler ways to do this.”

For once, Seth is right. Pretty smart, too.

Neil purses his lips. It makes them look rosier and Andrew flexes his hand again to distract himself. From where Neil is crouched, Andrew can see the curve of muscle beneath his tight-knit leggings. The slope of his muscled arms where they rest casually over his knees. “Don’t worry. Your part is over. I am not going to drag you into anything.”

“Too late,” Andrew says. He doesn’t mean to speak—he usually tunes out most of the interactive part of the Foxes’ job—but he can’t not say something. He has to see the way those blue eyes shift toward him. The way Neil contemplates the response.

“Are you a slave?” Kevin asks.

Neil tenses. This time, Andrew does smack Kevin’s head, while Neil is distracted. Kevin shoots Andrew a look, but he recognizes the mistake. Open-ended questions were much better for getting the truth. More effective.

“No,” Neil finally says, but there is something strained in his voice. “Once. No longer. My old master seems to believe differently.”

“So, which is it?” Seth asks, annoyed. His arms are crossed over his chest and his gaze is sharp. “Are you a runaway slave, or not?”

“Does it matter?” Kevin interrupts. “You know our rules.”

“I’m not—”

Neil cuts in, but Andrew doesn’t miss the way the elf notes the disagreement between the two men. “I am not. There is no legal bond holding me to another.”

Legality doesn’t matter, in most cases. But it’s all that matters to Wymack and—for the most part—Kevin. No contract means no immediate repercussions. Kevin wasn’t lying when he said Neil only had to ask. Wymack’s Foxes specialize in sob stories like the one Neil is probably hiding.

For once, though, Andrew is interested. Maybe it’s the marks on Neil’s skin or the way he flips his daggers, but there is something about the elf that pulls Andrew in. Something that makes his blood hum.

That is dangerous. But it’s been a while since Andrew has experienced anything really dangerous, and he’s not opposed to it. He’ll never lose control, anyway.

So, why not have some fun along the way?

* * *

 

Neil sits in darkness. He found an abandoned alcove by the docks when he first arrived in the city, and he knows the schedule of the city well enough to avoid being caught or disturbed. Neil has spent his nights in worse places.

He thinks about the men he met, the night before. The Foxes. Neil would have had to be mute, deaf, and blind not to know about them. Their reputation had climbed slowly in the city, mostly because they had earned a name for taking care of other people’s problems. There were patterns to their work. They offered help to the underdog, most of the time.

Which Neil technically was. Even if he didn’t believe it.

The ones he met were ones he knew, if only by name. Kevin, the sorcerer. Seth, the warrior. Andrew. That one, Neil knew better than most. He was controversial. One half of a set of twins, with Andrew being the blood witch of the two. He was the argument most people made, when they warned that the Foxes were trouble. That Wymack was going to bring down the city with his so-called philanthropy.

Neil pulls his cloak around his shoulders. rises from his corner, when he hears voices and footsteps. There are people approaching that should not be.

“…did. You know better than to turn it down,” Seth says. Neil recognizes his voice immediately.

Kevin snorts. “We do not need—”

“Yes, we do.”

Neil wonders if he should point out that they are not being very covert. He glances around the alley he stands in and decides not to. Instead, he levers himself up onto a bare windowsill. He pulls his body up, onto the roof of the house. Finds his footing silently. Neil pads across roofs as he tracks the movement of the Foxes—and he notices Andrew is there, too. Silent, like he was before.

“Have you thought about it?” Seth asks.

“I have,” Kevin says, curt. “I still don’t think it’s an issue.”

“Seriously.”

Kevin is irritated when he replies. “Yes. Seriously.”

The conversation continues, but Neil doesn’t pay attention. He is distracted by figures in the distance. Hooded thieves, crouched over rooftops, their eyes on the Foxes. They do not see Neil, but no one ever does. That’s the point.

Neil mulls over his choices. He could interject. Part of him wants to hold back, just so he can see the Foxes in action, but he can’t. He feels irrationally guilty that the trio were pulled into his business, before. Neil would rather pay his debts sooner.

Besides, it’s not just rooftop thieves after the Foxes. There are dogs and armored men flooding down alleys. Neil contemplates a warning until he notices Andrew turn suddenly. The man holds a hand up—speaks too quietly for Neil to hear—and then, everything happens at once.

Neil doesn’t consider the fight. He works best on instinct, so he trusts it. Leaps from his roof to a nearby perch and dispatches two archers. He slides down the side of the building and his feet hit the ground. It is warm and firm beneath him, baked from a day of intense heat. Neil slides out of cover to flip over an armored man. Catches the weak spot in his armor with a dagger, easy and practiced.

Most things escape Neil’s mind, when he has daggers in hand. All that matters to him is their weight in his hands. The surety of their blades. Neil spares only glances at the Foxes, who have things well in hand on the ground. He leaps onto the canopy of a closed stall and pulls himself onto a roof again, just to take the archers placed there.

He works quickly. Time has always been important, for Neil. It is all that determines whether he lives or dies. Neil knows that every second is precious, especially when he only has so many of them.

His clock is ticking away, and he won’t last much longer. He has to make the most of what he has, now.

Seth curses. Neil notices Kevin slide against a building, clutching his left arm. There is an angry cut on it—not crippling, but annoying, for a sorcerer. Neil muses that the trio are not very well-balanced. _Good thing I’m here._ He drops quickly and—

—and, has a moment of uncertainty.

There is a lot he keeps secret. A lot of things he must, to protect himself. To protect anyone else that happens to meet him.

Doing this means a secret no longer kept. It means Neil giving away just a little comfort and just a little protection. Both are things he has fought violently to keep hold of.

He should probably think about why he is going to do this, but he doesn’t.

Kevin leans against a wall while Seth stands before him, maul ready. Andrew lingers a few feet to their left, blood in his hands. Neil lingers in the shadows of the alley he jumped down into. He slides one of his feet backward and breathes in quietly. _Just a little,_ he thinks. Just a little power.

Well. There’s not really a way to stem the tide, once he lets it flow.

Neil bursts forth and feels his scars hum—feels the magic carved into him rise to the surface. He covers the space between himself and the Foxes in the blink of an eye; his body hums and there is static on his tongue. The three men left falter, off-balance from the interruption. Neil can’t stop moving. The momentum is a tornado; he reels within it. It is all Neil can do to draw his daggers and let the wind take him where he needs to go.

When he stops, the men hit the ground and Neil feels the leftover magic and energy hum on his bones. It is almost painful. It is jarring. It shakes his core and Neil only keeps himself grounded with the stone beneath his feet. Even his cloak flutters softly, like a phantom breeze is there and will not let it go.

“You,” Kevin says. He presses a hand haphazardly to the cut on his arm.

“Me.”

“Are you following us? Or was this another one of your diversions?” Seth snaps. He looks like he wants to hit something. Neil is starting to guess that the expression is Seth’s default. They probably share a need for movement, but Seth would never see past it. Not if they keep meeting in these kinds of circumstances.

“I was nearby,” Neil says. “I didn’t follow you. Not until I saw them.”

“Why?” This time, it is Andrew that speaks. He considers Neil with a placid expression, but his eyes are sharp. They are a familiar color. They remind Neil of earth. Stability.

Neil reminds himself to focus. “Because I owed it to you.”

Kevin sighs. “We take payment, for jobs. We—”

“What I have is yours,” Neil says. He tosses a small bag to Kevin. He took it on instinct, when he was dispatching the archers. It’s not technically all he has, but the small amount hidden in the city is not to be touched. Not even for this.

Kevin catches the bag. He looks surprised. “We don’t need—”

“You just said you take payment.”

Kevin’s lips press into a thin line. The vague irritation in his furrowed brow says that he probably understands the score. Neil is not going to back down. Kevin sighs and finally tucks the coins away. “You know, we aren’t avoiding you. If you still want help—”

“I never did.”

“Right. That’s why you used us to lure someone out,” Seth says. He snorts.

Neil almost grinds his teeth. “I didn’t mean to. That was Dorman’s mistake.”

“We need money,” Kevin says suddenly. He probably means to remind Seth, because the other man looks mutinous at the suggestion. “You have a task you need to complete. If you have payment, we will help.”

Neil wants to say _no._ He wants to say, _it would be easier to take care of it myself. I always have._ He wants to, but—

—but, he is also tired. He is so damn tired. He just wants…a moment. A breath. A chance to not worry about every waking moment.

He shouldn’t rely on anyone else. Every fiber of his being tells him not to. His instinct and his memory tell him it’s a shitty idea. There is no justification. No reason good enough to say yes.

But he does.

“Yes,” Neil says. “I will accept your help.”


	2. The Foxhole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil does not dodge the proverbial bullet. Well—it's an arrow. But, still. Neil does not dodge it. In fact, he steps right in front of it.
> 
> Andrew does not allow them to bring Neil to the Foxhole because he cares. He doesn't. Not even when Neil won't shut up, arrow in his chest and all. As for Neil—well, he has a lot to be careful of. But he's not sure yet whether the Foxes fall into that category yet, or not.

“This is a bad idea.”

“If you’re not going to be helpful, you can go back home,” Kevin snaps. He glares at Seth for a second before quickening his pace.

Andrew ghosts Kevin quietly as they make their way through the dark city. It’s late and no one is awake, but that was the deal. They’re supposed to meet Neil at the entrance to hightown.

For all Seth’s complaining, he isn’t going to stop them, or go back. As much as Seth says he hates Kevin and distrusts Andrew, he’s more afraid of going back to Allison and her ire.

Of course, he’s also curious about Neil. Andrew can’t really argue that point.

Neil is waiting by the gates. Andrew almost doesn’t notice him and when he does, he suspects it’s because Neil purposely moved and drew attention to himself. The elf looks just the same—covered-up, bright blue eyes and wolf mask covering half his face. He keeps his distance as he examines the faces he sees and ensures that he knows them.

“There is still time to back out.” Neil’s voice isn’t even muffled by the mask. Interesting.

Kevin shakes his head. “We are doing this. Do you have—”

“Payment,” Neil says. His hand is a flash of movement Andrew barely tracks, as he tosses a small coin purse to Kevin. Andrew is immediately reminded of flashing knives.

Which is distracting. Andrew hisses a breath out through his teeth and digs his nails into his palms.

“That’s not what I was asking,” Kevin replies, but he shoves the bag into his pocket. “Do you have a layout? A plan? What are we—”

“One at a time. Jesus,” Seth mutters. As if he’s the resident expert.

Neil just looks between the two of them. Andrew wonders if he’s amused. _What would amused look like, on that angsty face?_ “No,” Neil finally says. “No layout. It’s a mansion. There shouldn’t be any guards, but the man inside might summon demons. Nothing too difficult to take care of.”

“Just demons, he says.” Andrew isn’t sure why he said anything. Now, he has Neil’s gaze on him and he can’t come up with something else.

Thankfully, Kevin’s got enough attitude to move things along. “So? Who is it we’re after? The man you said claimed to own you?”

Typical Kevin tact. Andrew gauges Neil’s reaction, of which there is none. _Interesting._

“Maybe. The man you drew out was sent to find me. The one I’m looking for can’t be far behind. The mansion is where the necromancer worked from.”

“So, you’re guessing,” Seth says, irritated. “You don’t know what’s in there.”

Neil gives him a long look. “I know what we’re facing. Like I said. Demons.”

The elf doesn’t say much else. Andrew contents himself with watching the way Neil moves—for tactical reasons, he reminds himself. Neil is interesting. He might be half-elf, Andrew thinks. There’s a humanity to the way he interacts with the world that Andrew hasn’t found in too many pure-blood elves. Or maybe it’s just Neil’s past. Whatever the case, Neil seems to hide. He almost doesn’t exist; it’s like he melts into the air around him. Like he’s part of the scenery.

Andrew contemplates the tattoo-like scars poking out from Neil’s long sleeves. They cross over his hands, nearly white against his tan skin. Andrew remembers a blue glow. Something crackling. He wonders if it’s magic.

That is a problem.

The Foxes are not perfect. They have their unfortunate members and their rough edges. But Andrew knows how to deal with all of them. Magic, however…

…he needs to know.

Especially since Neil doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

“Here,” Neil says. He is so quiet Andrew almost doesn’t notice.

They stand at the door to a mansion. Neil wasn’t lying. Even from what seems to be the back door, Andrew can tell they have their work cut out for them. The more ground they have to cover, the greater their chances of being caught in a bad place.

Andrew traces the surface of one of the vials across his chest. He has enough blood with him, he thinks, and there are knives hidden beneath the black leather on his arms. He has ways.

Neil opens the back door and it begins. Andrew catches sight of a trap, once they pass through the little back cellar—he gestures at it and Kevin nods sharply, one hand already moving toward the sigil on the floor. It makes a sound like a crack or a snap as it glows all at once. The square lights and then goes dark.

“They’ll know we’re here,” Kevin says. They stick to the walls in the next room.

The dirt on the floor shouldn’t move at all, but somehow, it shifts. Maybe it’s luck or maybe it’s something else. What matters is that Seth throws an arm out to stop Neil and the elf freezes, everything about the lines of his body screaming _danger_.

Interesting.

Seth slides something out of his pocket—a smooth stone, maybe—and rolls it across the floor. A line of weighted traps activate with metallic rattles and Andrew watches the sheets snap against the ground. Little clouds of dirt puff up.

Kevin presses his lips together as he stares at the line. “The man you’re after didn’t strike me as sloppy.”

“He’s not.” Neil’s hands tighten and Andrew notices, for the first time, that he is holding daggers. These are dark; the blades are ebony, like the night. Like shadow. Their colorless gleam is enticing.

Distracting, too. Andrew pointedly looks away and waits for Kevin to move to the next room.

Despite the quick succession of traps, the rest of their journey seems to be unhindered. They pass through rooms wine-colored carpeting and mahogany furniture. The drapes are thick and carry the dust of more than a few weeks’ time.

After the fifth room they pass through, Kevin finally voices the obvious. “This place hasn’t been occupied in some time.”

“Not by humans.” Neil turns halfway, as if to say something else, and then he whips around. Andrew barely catches what makes him turn; maybe it’s the elf’s senses that put him one step ahead.

Whatever the reason, Neil sees the man in the doorway first. The man that should be cloaked in some sort of hiding spell. Neil rolls out of the line of fire, but he throws one of his gleaming daggers. It seems to go in the wrong direction, but then the man moves and steps right into it. He seems startled that it hit him.

Well, _now_ Andrew is impressed.

Kevin gets to work immediately. His eyebrows are knit together just a little while he works his magic from a safe distance. Seth doesn’t have the same luxury. He goes in swinging, at least somewhat reliant on Kevin’s magic to act as a buffer against whatever is going to be directed at him.

Andrew…well. He’s a little bit of a bastard, when it comes to combat. Other things, too. But combat is really where his differences shine.

Blood witches aren’t really magic users or combat fighters. They’re a little of both, and sometimes not enough of either. Andrew, fortunately or not, is too much of both. His magic is too strong and unruly for him to like, much less tame, so he always settles for shoving it down and into his fists. His knives. Fighting with his twin blades is much simpler, and Andrew is very good at it. His blood is not used to do more than enchant the blades, to pierce through any type of armor or spell they might encounter.

He also uses his blood to bolster the other Foxes’ magic, where applicable, but that’s a different story.

The point is, probably no one else could fight with Andrew properly. He doesn’t behave the way he’s supposed to, in combat.

Yet, Neil does. He doesn’t fight _around_ Andrew, like others have before. He just…is there. Right next to him sometimes, and other times a room away, but always watching and conscious. It’s weird.

The summoner puts up a fight, but it doesn’t last long. Nearly five waves of lesser demons later, Kevin locks the summoner in place and Neil finally strikes the killing blow. Neil’s black dagger slides right into place in the man’s chest; there is no blood and no mess. Only a silent death.

It should not be nearly as attractive as Andrew finds it. And sure, maybe Aaron has his poisoner’s kit and does quiet work sometimes, too. Maybe Renee can be classy when she spars, even if she never leaves the Foxhole.

But this is different. This way Neil has, with his knives and with his enemies, is deadly. Efficient. Quiet. Neil lets his enemies die a silent death and that is both dangerous and…

…something else.

“Was that it?” Seth asks. There are a few splatters of blood on his cheek. He is just barely out of breath.

Neil’s fists curl around his daggers. “That wasn’t him.”

“So? Who was it?”

“Just another rat,” Neil replies. There’s an edge to his voice; it’s barely there, but Andrew hears it. He’s not sure whether it’s good or not to know that Neil is affected by what happens around him. “I think—”

He never finishes. Neil tenses again, except this time, he doesn’t move out of the way. For some bizarre, stupid, _frustrating_ reason, Neil whirls and places himself in the way of the arrow that hurtles toward Seth. It was meant to be a gut shot—a painful death—but it hits Neil somewhere near his shoulder. Somewhere quick and dangerous.

Above the wolf’s maw, Neil’s eyes are a furious blue. Andrew has the unbidden desire to hold them in his hands like gems. He wants to _have_.

And that is wrong. That is very, very wrong.

Neil looks down at the arrow that protrudes from his chest and sighs. “Come out and make this quick. I don’t have time for your games. Little fish should stay in their ponds, lest they end up in sandwiches.”

It’s so nonsensical and cheeky that Andrew chokes on an aborted laugh. Kevin throws a wild look at Neil, the glow of magic humming over his hands. Someone steps out of the shadows—Andrew doesn’t have time to guess at their magic—and Seth steps forward.

It takes one swing from Seth, bolstered by Kevin’s magic, to cut the man down.

“Do we get a third ending?” Andrew asks casually.

Neil snorts. _Snorts._ He shakes his head like Andrew isn’t dangerous or humming with raw energy and a fight. The elf must have no sense of self-preservation. Of course, he doesn’t; he jumped in the way of an arrow.

Speaking of which.

“Shit,” Seth mutters. He peers at the arrow with something approaching concern and that makes Andrew pause. Seth doesn’t _care_. His brand of not-caring almost rivals Andrew’s.

Kevin turns in place agitatedly. “We need to get him to Abby.”

Neil’s hand curls again and Andrew watches, faintly amused, when Neil immediately uncurls it. The move must have hurt, and it seems like he knew it would—there’s no surprise on his face—so, he did it for a reason. “No,” Neil says. “I ca—”

“No,” Kevin echoes. He frowns. “Don’t be stubborn. Abby has patched up the Foxes more times than we can count. She’s seen the worst.”

Neil smiles, but it is devoid of joy. It seems more like sarcasm. Andrew wonders, for a second, if it would taste like bitterness and blood. It is _absolutely_ an intrusive thought.

A dangerous one. Though not entirely unwelcome.

“Come on,” Seth mutters. “It’s not our business to let our clients get injured and bleed out in the dirt.”

“I’m your client. Aren’t you supposed to do what I say?”

“Are you always this blasé about death and dying?”

“Only on—Tuesdays,” Neil says. Andrew doesn’t miss the stumble. He is momentarily disappointed in himself for being interested by Neil.

The jokes are fun, but then Neil takes a sharp breath and presses his hand to the wound. Kevin’s eyes narrow and he waves a hand sharply.

None of them miss it this time—the way Neil physically recoils, despite his injury and the fact that Seth is half holding him up. Kevin’s eyes widen a little because he has a shit poker face and then Seth’s hand tightens on Neil’s shoulder. “We need to go,” he says darkly. “Now.”

Halfway to the Foxhole, Neil pauses to lean into an alley and vomit. The line of tension in Kevin’s back steels and Seth forgoes all propriety to hoist Neil into his arms. He’s surprisingly gentle about it, too. They cover the rest of the ground toward the Foxhole quickly and then Kevin practically slams the front door open.

Wymack looks up from the bar, already exasperated. “What now—”

His expression changes completely when he sees Neil. Andrew notes, with some interest, that Neil curls further into Seth’s chest and tightens his death grip on the man’s arm. Neil pointedly does not look at Wymack—at least visibly. Andrew notices the way Neil tracks the man behind the bar, out of the corner of his eye. Like he’s practiced at watching without being seen.

“Oh, shit,” Nicky exclaims. He’s in the doorway to the barroom, eyes wide and curly hair as wild as always. “Fuck. You brought someone home, Seth?”

Seth’s distasteful expression gives Nicky the idea to look at his cousin. The second his eyes land on Andrew, there’s a tiny crease on his forehead. He is calculating the lack of bruises on Seth and Kevin, along with the newcomer in Seth’s arms. Nicky is thinking about all the ways Andrew could have said no, and he’s thinking of all the reasons they might not have been spoken.

Nicky is being troublesome, as usual.

“Gotta get Abby,” Nicky says abruptly. To his credit, at least he’s got his priorities straight. “Stay here.”

Nicky turns on his heel and Seth grinds his teeth silently. Neil blinks and Andrew notices his eyes look hazy. “Hey,” Andrew says. He doesn’t mean to speak at all—it’s not like talking will help—but he does.

“Shit.” Seth whirls toward the bar and places Neil there with more care than Andrew has seen him do anything else with. “Neil. Neil, look at me. Keep your fucking eyes open.”

“If I have to keep looking at you, it’s not worth it,” Neil mutters.

“Jesus Christ,” Seth chokes. “Do you _ever_ stop?”

“I might. If I die. You know, which is happening.”

Neil’s voice sounds thin. He looks pale and shitty, but he is _still talking,_ and Andrew wants to knock himself out, just a little.

Abby comes whirling into the room, hair flying and medicine kit in hand. Her harried expression is just a little wary when she sees Neil. Her heart is too big for her not to care, even if it’s not one of the Foxes.

“What happened?”

Neil points at the arrow and raises an eyebrow. Andrew feels like he’s the one that was shot.

“Get Dan,” Abby tells Kevin. “I need to start. Jesus—who put him on the bar? Why—”

Andrew tenses. He sees a flood of something in Neil’s face—sees the familiar fight and panic, followed by a grim resolution.

Neil passes out.

* * *

He wakes up in a dim room. It smells like cinnamon. Neil curls his fingers and finds sheets beneath them. He almost forgot what it was like to wake up in a bed, with softness instead of hard earth.

One of the first things he notices about the room is that it’s tiny. As in, it looks just a little bigger than a closet. Despite that, there is a window and he can see a motley assortment of roofs. He’s higher than a first and maybe a second floor. It’s cool, but not cold. There are bundles of herbs lining the wall by the window.

Neil blames the arrow on the painful throb in his chest. On the illusion that this place feels like a _home_ , in a way he didn’t think he could understand.

The door creaks and Neil turns to look, wary. Old wood shifts under heavy boots and then Seth peers in, guarded as usual. Neil likes Seth. He’s quite obviously an asshole—Neil might have to straighten him out, at some point—but Seth is also amusing. Willing to step up to Neil in ways most people don’t.

Being an elf and a scarred beast tend to do that.

“Oh, good. No martyr’s death for you,” Seth mutters darkly. Neil is starting to think they’re a lot alike. Seth also contradicts himself, in the way he says shitty things but still glances over Neil like he’s checking for traces of pain.

Neil shrugs and _fuck_ , it hurts. “It’s sweeter, the longer it takes.”

Seth snorts. He doesn’t have an answer before Kevin whirls in, all business and a blue cloak. He looks unaccustomed to being at a bedside.

_No,_ Neil realizes. Kevin looks unaccustomed to being at _Neil’s_ bedside. His awkwardness is more a result of a lack of social skills.

Neil wonders when he started caring about these Foxes.

“Abby patched you up,” Kevin says unnecessarily. “You’ll be fine, with a day or two of rest. It was mostly blood loss that knocked you out. Too much too fast.”

“I know,” Neil says. He regrets it immediately. Seth tenses and Kevin searches Neil’s face, as if he can find an explanation there. Neil almost wants to disappoint him. _I don’t normally get shot for other people,_ he wants to say. _I get shot all for me._

Somehow, he likes this better.

“Well,” Seth interrupts, “You’re staying here until she clears you. That’s how she works. In the meantime, the others should meet you. Just so they get it out of their system and stay the fuck away.”

Neil warily folds back his sheets. He looks at the one-inch strip and contemplates his hands.

He realizes his hands are exposed. As well as his arms. And—

— “Who took them off?” Neil asks. He sounds distant to his own ears. There’s a bleeding edge of panic there, too. “Who—”

“Abby had to check you,” Seth says slowly. He shifts like he wants to move closer. “We didn’t—”

Neil doesn’t hear the rest. He only sees. Sees the scars that trace up his bare arms, toward his chest and neck and face. The spidery white is like lightning. It hurt more.

Something presses against his neck. The weight is sudden but concrete and Neil blinks, startled. He finds a pale arm at the edge of his vision, black leather stretched from wrist to elbow. There’s a surprising strength to the hand on Neil’s neck.

“Get dressed,” Andrew commands. He tosses a stack of clothes onto the foot of Neil’s bed, despite being right there, his hand on Neil. “They’ll meet you downstairs.”

“He shouldn’t move so much,” Seth mutters darkly.

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Then carry him down. He’s your princess.”

Andrew slinks out and Kevin pauses before following. Neil stares at the pile of clothes and tries not to feel like he has been brought back from a ledge. Especially not by Andrew.

Seth follows Neil’s gaze and glares at the clothes like they did something wrong. It’s a little bewildering and amusing to have someone on his side, finally. Neil isn’t sure what he did to deserve it. Seth unfolds the clothes and throws them into separate spots on the sheets.

“Does he own anything that’s not black?” Neil wonders mildly. “Or does he think we can’t tell that he’s broody and threatening?”

Seth snorts. He gives Neil an unimpressed look that feels less like it’s directed at the comment and more at something else. Neil elects to ignore it.

“Get dressed.” Seth sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Do you need help?”

“No.”

“I’ll be outside, then.”

Odd, to have someone care. To ask at all. Neil watches Seth leave, closing the door behind him. Neil realizes he’s never been in a room with a door before.

This time, no one is there to drag him out of the well that swallows him whole. The panic and dread choke him until he stumbles from bed, entire body aching and fiery, to desperately look for water. He finds a glass and pitcher by his bedside; he ignores the glass and drinks straight from the pitcher. Neil paces himself—he knows to, from many times being parched before—and pours half of it on his head.

Neil stands facing the window. He looks over the city and wonders what it is about the view—the place. The Foxes. There are more reasons not to trust them. More reasons to lie and get away.

_So why are those the last things I want to do?_

He ignores the ache in his chest and pulls on the clothes. They’re a little tighter than he’s used to, but he can’t find his own things. The only remnant of his belongings are the knives and belts on a chair in the corner, and the cloak hung by the door. Neil pauses and contemplates them. He settles for tucking the knives into his boots; the cloak won’t help him, now.

He distantly wonders where his mask is and hopes Andrew hasn’t appropriated it.

Seth doesn’t look up when the door opens. He silently walks down the hall and Neil notices there aren’t any other rooms. They are in what passes for an attic; the staircase they take leads them through a second floor of closed doors. The ground floor is the bar that Neil barely remembers, from before he passed out. He silently inspects the wood for traces of his blood and finds none.

“Walkin’ pretty well, for someone who was shot,” the man behind the counter says. He looks gruff but sharp. There are black tattoos on his burly arms and his gaze says he can very clearly see through most bullshit. Neil doesn’t like that look. It usually means issues, for him.

Neil shrugs. “I have practice.”

He doesn’t clarify. The man can work it out, or not.

“Wow,” someone gasps. Neil turns to see a man in the doorway, apparently just back from doing something. He is tanned, with a head of curls that rivals Neil’s red-brown nest in terms of disarray. “I’m glad you’re up. Boy, you’re pretty. I’m glad you took the mask off.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Seth says. His tone is acid, Neil notices. There’s something old between them.

“I don’t mind,” Neil says drily. “Most insults are accompanied by projectiles and blades. This is tame.”

The curly-haired man looks equally confused and distraught. “What? It’s not—”

“Nicky,” Kevin says. He’s suddenly at the door, too, swirling his deep blue cloak off like he’s performing. Neil wonders if Kevin ever does _anything_ without assuming he’s showing off for someone. “I told you to take the haul to Wymack.”

“Oh, come on,” Nicky complains. He tosses something to Wymack—a bag of coins, Neil thinks. “There. Happy? Jesus. I was talking to—um—"

“Neil.” It’s weird, telling someone his name. _Well. ‘Name’_.

Nicky beams. “I’m Nicky. I’m the twins’ cousin.”

“Twins,” Neil echoes. He almost asks, but of course, footsteps echo in the stairwell and then his question is answered.

Andrew appears with someone else in tow—someone that shares his face and body.

Except, that’s not true. The person behind Andrew is different. He has eyes that seem more _awake,_ somehow. The twin has neater hair and there’s color in his clothes. His gaze is just as heavy, though, even if it’s devoid of threat. He just stares at Neil like he’s looking at an intruder.

Which is fair.

“There,” Andrew says. He waves vaguely at Neil. “You’re introduced.”

Andrew makes a beeline for the bar and Neil watches him, unimpressed. Nicky rolls his eyes dramatically. “That’s Aaron,” he says, pointing to Andrew’s brother. “He and Andrew are opposite twins.”

“What you just said? Didn’t make sense,” Seth points out, mocking.

“He gets it,” Nicky says with a shrug. He’s right. Neil gets it.

“Girls are in the back,” Wymack notes. “Go get them.”

“Matt?” Nicky inquires, as he walks away.

“With Dan.”

“Of course.”

Neil pulls a chair away from the bar. He is suddenly…very, very sleepy. He is exhausted. It hits him all at once and he wonders what happened. He’s lost blood before. This newfound laziness isn’t exactly helpful.

Nicky reappears with three women. The tallest, with blonde hair and immaculate clothing, casts a glance at Seth. There is history there that Neil isn’t keen on prying at. “Allison,” she says abruptly, as if that’s all she needs to say. It takes a second for her to add, “You look like shit. But pretty.”

“I hope you’re doing well,” a shorter woman says. She has a sweet smile and Neil feels an edge of distrust. She moves the way someone who has hurt others does. It’s in the slide of her quiet feet on the floor and the coil of her muscles. “I’m Renee.”

“I’m fine.”

“At least he’s a shitty liar,” the third woman says. She scrutinizes Neil with equal parts caution and care. Something about her expression brings to mind the word _mother_ , and that makes Neil choke back a fresh wave of nausea. _She is nothing like your mother._ “I’m Dan. I keep track of us, aside from Wymack.”

“You keep track of us more than Wymack, sometimes,” someone says. Neil turns to watch a tall man emerge from behind the bar, his expression tired. If Dan is a mother, Neil assumes this person is a father. Especially when he slides up to Dan and they click into place like they simply belong that way. “Matt. I keep the fights in check around here, when I can.”

Matt sends Andrew a significant look. Andrew doesn’t even look at him. Neil ignores the silent conversations that deafen him and echo in the room. Instead, he makes a game out of guessing.

Kevin is a sorcerer, Seth is a warrior, and Andrew is a blood witch. Neil takes stock of the others and tries to guess at what they are.

Aaron, he decides, works with poison. Maybe he’s a ranger. He seems to prefer being away from everyone else. Renee obviously doesn’t leave, so she might be a cleric, but Neil still knows the threat of death in her past. Allison seems like a fighter, but unlike Seth, Neil thinks she is best with precision weapons. Dan is clearly a druid, from the woven bracelets she wears to the mix of care and stubborn defiance Neil sees in her. Nicky is probably some sort of paladin, Neil thinks, because he has tan lines from places where armor straps have probably sat on his skin. Nicky is also just the type.

“You sure he should be up and around?” Dan frowns, and Neil realizes he hasn’t said anything.

Neil shrugs. The movement sends a stab of pain through his chest. “I’m not dead yet. Why start now?”

Seth snorts. “I think he’s fine.”

“I like him,” Allison announces. She places herself on a barstool—there is no climb involved; her movement are smooth and unhurried. “Where’d you pick this one up? Can’t believe the monster let you bring him back.”

Seth shoots Andrew a cautious glare. _Monster?_ Neil looks between them but sees nothing more than what he already knew. “He hired us,” Seth says shortly. “That’s it.”

“For what?”

“House cleaning,” Neil says.

Nicky giggles. “Oh, he’s _so_ cute. Neil. Neil, do you need more help? I am there. I am _so_ there.”

“What’s Erik gonna say?” Dan asks, but from the way she rolls her eyes, this is a common exchange. Neil just tries to keep up with the new names.

“We have an agreement,” Nicky says, waving his hand dismissively. “Anyway, you’re going to tell me you wouldn’t help? Look at him. Cute little elf with big blue eyes? Sign me up.”

It shouldn’t—

—what Nicky says should not make a difference. The words should not mean anything from a stranger; much less one as cheerful and non-threatening as Nicky. Except words echo in Neil’s ears and he thinks about whispers and low chuckles. A damp castle and the stares of people coming in and out. _Such a pretty little elf. Look at those eyes…_

Neil’s skin crawls and he realizes a moment too late that he is scratching his arm with his nails. He looks down, blinking, and finds a thin red line. He starts to pull at his sleeve, but it’s a little too late. Allison sees the scars.

“What are those?” Allison asks, eyes locked on his arm.

Neil tugs at the sleeve and his mind whirls. He has a hundred excuses, for every instance. _Just an old injury, just a birthmark, just a tattoo._ He does, but he realizes his face is uncovered and the curves on his face are exposed. All it would take is one good look to know the scars cover his entire body.

There is no way to escape, really. So, Neil shrugs and says, “Discipline.”

Nicky makes a terribly choked noise from a few feet away. Allison and Renee share a pointed look. Neil isn’t sure what communication is happening in the room, but it sets him on edge. Part of him wants to rip his shirt off and get it over with. Another part wants to cover up and never leave his room, until he gets to leave.

“You were a slave?” Dan finally asks, tense.

“The term was ‘adoptive son’,” Neil says with a sarcastic smirk. He doesn’t miss Kevin’s flinch or the way the Foxes all look toward Kevin, at one point or another. _Interesting._ “There were a lot of words like that. Replacements.”

“Like what?” Seth asks. The question is ground out.

Neil shrugs. “Discipline. Contract termination. Dancing,” he lists. “Dancing never ended well.”

He thinks of Lola. Blood smeared on carpet. Neil wonders where she is. He hopes it’s the bottom of the ocean.

“Well, don’t use that shit here,” Wymack says suddenly. Neil almost forgot he was there. The man crosses his arms and stares from behind the counter. “We don’t fuck around with words. Call it like it is.”

Neil doesn’t answer. He just stares back. _I shouldn’t be here._ This is dangerous. Giving an inch means the blade comes one inch closer to his neck. One inch closer to death. Neil is just waiting for the guillotine to fall.

“So,” Andrew says, all quiet purpose. “What are the marks?”

He knows what he’s doing. He probably waited for the chance. Maybe he knew what Wymack would say. Andrew is calculating, and Neil knows, with utter certainty, that the man does not trust him.

So, Neil stares right back at Andrew and says, “Torture. And magic. But really—what’s the difference?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure hope you all are enjoying this! I meant to wait until Sunday to update (doing weekly, for now) but I just? Couldn't?? I had a lot of fun writing Neil's dialogue, as always. Maybe even more. Idk, I just love High Fantasy AU and honestly, Dragon Age 2 has been a true inspiration for this.


	3. A Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a Fox means earning your keep. Earning is strange in the city, though. While Neil tags along with Kevin, he happens to find himself wedged further into the Foxhole. Despite his best intentions, he isn't too angry about it.  
> Even if he does get caught in a fight with a cult.

“Andrew,” someone warns. He doesn’t pay attention to who it is. Andrew stares down at the man on the ground and nudges him closer to the edge of the dock with his foot.

“Stop,” Kevin says, irritated. He gestures for Andrew to move back; he’s smart enough not to touch.

Kevin sighs and crouches over the prone man. He turns the man’s head to the side, frowning, and examines him. Andrew stops watching after two seconds.

Andrew’s eyes instead wander inexorably toward Neil. The elf stands three feet away, blue eyes owlishly blinking as he watches for approaching trouble. He is back to wearing his stupid wolf mask and his shirt, even though the fabric is noticeably torn where he was shot with an arrow.

This is the third time they have gone out as a team. Well—third since Neil jumped in front of an arrow for Seth. It’s like a trial period, even though Andrew knows it’s mostly for show. Neil isn’t facing the same scrutiny the other Foxes did. He’s been welcomes almost immediately.

All because he saved an asshole. Andrew questions his fellow guild members’ sanity.

“Look.” Nicky blocks Andrew’s field of vision for a moment, tall and golden. He always seems to look like he’s standing under the sun, even when it’s late in the evening. “Isn’t it pretty?”

He would never admit it, but Andrew leans to the side to get a glimpse of what Nicky is talking about.

In Nicky’s hand is something small. A stone, maybe, or a fragment of some gem. Andrew can’t really see from so far and his eyes are occasionally shit, when he needs to see things up close.

What Andrew does see is Neil’s reaction. The usually placid elf’s eyes widen a little as he pokes at the object. He glances up at Nicky like a child asking for permission and Nicky giggles, bouncing his palm in offering. Neil gingerly takes what Nicky is holding and holds it far too close to his face, turning it, mesmerized.

Andrew kind of hates how easily amused Neil is. He definitely does not like the way Neil’s blue eyes look as he examines the tiny gift.

“This is pointless.” Kevin sighs and rises swiftly, turning with an audible flutter of his cloak. Andrew thinks the feathers at the shoulders make him look like a disgruntled bird. Which Kevin is.

Nicky turns, a frown starting to invade his sunny expression. “What?”

“There’s nothing on him,” Kevin says, waving a hand dismissively. “We’re not getting anywhere, with this. All the leads they’ve sent have been dead ends.”

True. Nicky runs a hand through his curls, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. “Well, it’s supposedly a cult. There has to be some way in.”

Andrew doesn’t give a damn. He really doesn’t. This job is the least of his concerns. He’s more interested in finding out how to pull the truth from Neil—the story about his scars. Andrew allows Neil, because he was shot for Seth, as stupid as it was. Andrew doesn’t trust him. Not yet.

Of course, now is the moment that Neil decides to open his mouth and say something smart. “If it’s a cult, they’re meeting somewhere. It’ll be out of the way—”

“Where they’re meeting doesn’t matter,” Kevin replies. “We’re supposed to be looking for their sister. If we go to the center, we risk starting a fight, and then we’d have to kill everyone.”

Neil looks physically pained by the argument. Andrew would laugh, if he could. “You don’t have to kill everyone. Anyway, she wouldn’t be there. They wouldn’t trust her, yet.”

No one asks how Neil thinks he knows this. Andrew is about to, just because he can’t not say anything, and then Nicky speaks instead.

“He has a point.” Nicky raises an eyebrow at Kevin. “Best case, we get to see how they operate. Worst case, we have to fight and get rid of a bunch of crazy people anyway.”

Kevin huffs, but his annoyance is probably more than half simple annoyance that he didn’t think of it first. Andrew nudges the man on the ground with his foot again, while he waits. Kevin swats blindly at him without looking away from Nicky.

“All right. Fine.” Kevin caves, probably because he’s tired of being out by the docks in the evening. The air is sticky with salt and they’ve all been out for at least two hours, chasing down the unconscious man on the ground. Andrew manages to push the man’s arm over the edge of the dock. There’s a small _plip_ as fingers hit the water. Andrew hopes they prune by the morning.

Nicky cheers and leads the way back to the Foxhole. He chatters as he goes, and Andrew does not watch Neil turn his gift between his quick fingers, walking it over knuckles and deftly flipping it in the air.

He doesn’t.

* * *

Neil turns the stone in his palm. It’s probably glass. It’s heavier than it looks; the bright blue swirls with white, like captured smoke. He really likes the way it looks.

It also brings back memories. Blood-red stones dripping against a pale neck. Feathered collars and a cruel hand sheathed in metal.

_You can’t run, Nathaniel. You are mine._

When Neil slams his hand down on a knife that sits on the counter, he calls it an accident.

“Be careful,” Dan says, pained. She takes Neil’s wrist immediately and turns his hand over for inspection. There’s no cut, but she still takes her time. “You don’t have to help, you know.”

Neil shrugs. He takes an onion from the pile of vegetables by Dan’s elbow and turns it in his hand. He rolls it onto a wooden cutting board and wonders who usually helps Dan. Neil imagines Andrew with an onion, stubbornly not crying, eyes red and burning. Stubborn—or rather, petty. Andrew is very petty.

“What are you making?” Neil spins the onion and deftly slices the top and bottom. It’s not as if he is practiced at cooking. He’s just good with knives.

“Pie.”

“Just one.”

“Well, several.” Dan sighs. “You won’t believe how much Seth eats. He should weigh twice what he does.”

“His body runs hot,” Neil comments. It was something he noticed when Seth carried him. Neil suspects that Seth’s body burns energy like Andrew burns hand-rolled cigarettes.

Dan’s hands stutter. She almost splashes herself with hot stock as she dumps carrots into a pot too quickly. “Oh?” she asks. Her voice is a little strained. “I didn’t know that.”

Neil almost adds that Kevin is a little warm, too, but then Kevin shows up and Neil decides to avoid conflict. For once. He’s hungry and tired; he doesn’t need to add Kevin to the mix.

Kevin has other ideas. He walks over, cloak still on his shoulders and the spellbook at his side hanging at an awkward angle. “What are you making?”

“Pies,” Dan replies, rolling her eyes.

Neil takes the opportunity to quietly reach out and straighten the spellbook. Kevin nearly doesn’t catch him, but his eyes wander from the pot on the stove and he sees Neil, blankly perplexed for a moment. A beat later, Kevin flushes a little and Neil is vaguely disturbed.

“What are you doing?” Kevin asks. His voice has that same thin sound that Dan’s did. Neil wonders if it’s contagious.

Neil raises an eyebrow. “Do you only ask questions that start with ‘what’?”

“Neil. I didn’t realize you were back.” Matt interrupts as he appears at the back door, sweaty and covered in dirt. He’s already tugging at his armor.

Dan looks around Kevin and gives Matt a once-over. “Clean up properly. We’ll be done in an hour.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Matt replies. He winks at Neil. “How did it go?”

“Same as all the rest,” Kevin answers, disgruntled. “Nothing—”

“Thank you, _Neil_ ,” Matt interrupts. He sounds more exasperated than angry. Kevin makes a face that barely looks chastised at all. Neil wishes he could capture the look and show it to the other Foxes, but he suspects it’ll happen again.

Neil shrugs. “Nicky gave me this.”

He’s not sure why that’s what he says, but he does. Matt holds his hand out, curious, and looks at the little stone. He hums in interest and holds it up to the light. “Pretty.”

Dan glances between Kevin and Neil. She looks at the stone like it has a secret to tell and Neil isn’t sure what’s happening. Matt taps the stone with a nail before he hands it back and says, “I bet I could get a hole in it. You could put it on a necklace. Or we could make earrings.”

Neil contemplates the stone. It’s a little smaller than a fingernail. He imagines it cut in two and smoothed into spheres. Earrings.

Sometimes, he had to wear jewelry. A costume. There were people coming and he had to look like an ornament. _You are mine, and I will not have trash at my feet._

“You don’t have to,” Matt says. His voice breaks the fog and Neil looks up to catch the tail end of Matt’s worried expression.

Neil turns the stone in his hand and offers it again. “Okay. Earrings.”

Matt smiles a little, encouraging. He takes the stone and very pointedly clasps it tight. “They’ll be done for you tomorrow.”

Matt goes to bathe, and Neil returns to Dan’s side, examining a bunch of celery. It smells green. This—the silence and acceptance—is foreign. Gifts are foreign. Offers. Most of Neil does not want to accept them; there must be a catch, because there’s always a catch.

But he’s damn tired. Neil is exhausted and for once, he doesn’t care to think about the consequences for the future.

After all, he probably won’t make it that long. Not with death on his heels.

* * *

“The sewers.”

Kevin avoids Andrew’s eyes. What would normal be routine is instead obviously avoidant. “Yes,” Kevin replies. He’s almost sweating. “The sewers.”

“Ready?” Neil interrupts them, emerging from the attic bedroom with his mask in hand. Andrew considers killing Kevin and then Neil, but decides he’ll just take extra from Kevin’s cut.

“Has everyone already complained that this is a bad idea?” Seth arrives, agitatedly tugging at the straps of his armor. He gives Andrew and Kevin cursory glances; his gaze rests on Neil. Seth frowns and Andrew thinks the man is five seconds from pacing around Neil to fully inspect him.

Neil glances at Seth, fingers fiddling with his mask. “Two thirds of the group belong to the ever-bitching party.”

“Stupid question.” Seth snorts. “So. Where are we going?”

Andrew looks pointedly at Kevin. “Sewers.”

Seth submits his colorful complaints while Neil pulls his mask on. Andrew wants to pull it off. He wants to see the scars on Neil’s face—the spidery white marks, like tree branches or veins. Andrew could probably come up with a dozen stories for them.

Staring at Neil, Andrew notices something new. Some things. There are two bright orbs on Neil’s right ear and one on his left. They flicker when he turns his head and Andrew thinks they might be almost the same color as Neil’s eyes.

Of course, those eyes catch him staring.

“What?”

Andrew bristles. He has been asking himself the same question. He knows the answer; he simply doesn’t want to. Andrew opens his mouth and the first thing that comes out is, “You are a mistake.”

Neil pauses. His hands hover midair. The cloak he was about to adjust slides awkwardly over his right shoulder more than his left.

There is something distinctly distant about Neil’s eyes, suddenly, and Andrew feels a crushing wave of _hate._ He hates that look. He hates that he sees it, the void and memory.

Somehow, he also hates that he did it.

“That is not news,” Neil replies. He is held together with spidery threads and Andrew feels like if he reached out, he could pull them until they broke. Something inside urges him to do it. To push Neil; to know him, in the way he breaks.

But Andrew can’t.

He sees a kind of warped mirror in Neil’s expression and Andrew cannot touch it, much less push.

Neil turns and follows Seth to the door. Andrew doesn’t reach out because he will not and cannot. He just lingers, hands curling, and tries not to think of the way Neil’s eyes changed. Of the familiar pain. There is acid on Andrew’s tongue. He thinks there are answers he should not know, but he wants to, and that’s worse.

“Putting it off won’t help. Let’s go,” Kevin says. He runs a hand over his face and starts to walk.

Andrew follows him, more autopilot than logical thought, and avoids looking at Neil. At the bright blue earrings and the flutter of his cloak.

It’s easy to distract himself with the job. Kevin clears a small trap at the entrance to the sewers and Neil quietly dispatches a guard with a well-placed knock to the head. The party delve deeper under the city and Andrew smells the damp decay of old tunnels. It presses down on him and he hates the feel of it clinging to his skin.

“They’re near,” Kevin suddenly says. The team halts and Neil eases along a wall silently, fingers pressed to the handles of his still-sheathed daggers.

They stand under a walkway. The sewer system is old and strange—there are two levels; the ground, with its ditches and wells, and the upper platforms with creaking stairs. There are giant support pillars for the city above and rooms scattered nonsensically. Andrew recognizes the disadvantage they are at. This is a place where they do not know the terrain; the cultists, wherever they are, do.

“Break the lines?” Seth twists a hand around his maul.

Kevin shakes his head. “We should listen, first. Andrew.”

“Why should I?” Andrew pushes Kevin, because without the push, Kevin stagnates. It’s also just fun to deny Kevin.

“You’re the smallest,” Neil answers instead. He says this while he looks elsewhere, under the guise of playing sentinel. Andrew knows better. He pointedly glares at the side of Neil’s face.

Seth stifles a snort. “Fine. But I doubt we’re going to hear anything important. We need a plan for when things go wrong.”

“I propose fighting. If something goes wrong,” Neil murmurs. “You know, as opposed to standing and waiting to be slaughtered.”

Andrew glares harder. Neil still doesn’t look at him.

Kevin sighs. “Go, Andrew. I’ll have a spell ready.”

Andrew moves because he’s tired of standing there. Not because Kevin told him.

The cultists are remarkably unconcerned about their position. It’s easy for Kevin to find them; they’re in the center of an open area, a row of cloaked figures standing before a pillar while a small crowd opposes them. The man in the center of the row is speaking low enough that Andrew can’t hear, but he doesn’t have to. Cults are all the same. Someone charming enough to lead and people stupid enough to follow. Give them enough time, and they could use their drones to take people that didn’t want to be taken.

This is just an infant organization. Not like the one that Kevin was from, as much as he insisted it wasn’t a cult. Andrew never listened to him. This was no exception.

Like Seth pointed out, there is nothing important to hear. Just gibberish and useless cries of passion. Andrew almost takes a nap there, but he has incentive to move. The money for the job, namely. The chance to bother Neil about his past, if they return to the Foxhole early enough.

After a few minutes of crouching and boredom, Andrew slinks down the stairs he came up. He nearly bumps into another cultist but stops just short of the man’s field of vision. Andrew contemplates taking the man down—one less for later—but decides to leave him. The less mess, the better.

Kevin waits with Seth. They’re having a hushed argument. Andrew looks for Neil, first—finds the rogue perched nearby like a figurehead, clinging to the edge of a broken pillar.

“Well?” Kevin asks, once he sees Andrew.

“Riveting. Their murmurs are the sweetest sound.”

Kevin presses his lips together. “Nothing?”

“I do not repeat myself.”

Seth rolls his eyes. “So, what now? Take them out while we can?”

“They’ve been trouble,” Kevin mutters. “Abductions. Blood. They’re dangerous.”

“What, is talking not an option?” Neil’s voice almost startles Andrew—almost, and that is a feat. The elf is suddenly on the ground again, tugging at his long sleeves. “Might as well. Maybe they’re the cheerful type. You know, like the ones that go door-to-door with their books and weird robes.”

“I doubt that,” Kevin says, nose wrinkled. He of course misses the point.

Seth sighs. Surprisingly, he’s the one that backs up the joke. “Why not? It’s not as if we have anything to lose. Anyway, if you try to talk, they might tell us where the girl is. Anyway, it’s not like we can’t plan an attack around it. Just in case.”

Neil doesn’t add anything. Andrew wonders if he was wrong, and Neil was being serious about talking. He gets his answer when Neil gestures toward the distant gathering. “There’s a good vantage point on the other side. I can watch from there.”

Andrew wants to say, wait, this isn’t really happening, but his mouth stays firmly shut. He is not about to say something. He much prefers letting the disaster play out. It’s more fascinating that way.

Anyway, Andrew doubts the result will be too bad. The worst that could happen is Kevin being knocked on his ass. There aren’t enough cultists to pose a threat.

“Get moving,” Kevin finally says. “Andrew. With me.”

Andrew does not take issue with Kevin’s command because he doesn’t care enough to. He is too busy watching Neil scale the side of a walkway like an idiot instead of climbing the stairs. Like an idiot, Andrew reminds himself, and the muscles in Neil’s arms are not alluring at all.

For the most part, Andrew tunes out the words being thrown around the cult gathering. He instead tunes his senses to more important things—exit routes, numbers, proximity of targets to Kevin. Andrew is not concerned with anything but keeping Kevin alive.

Whatever he misses, then, is something Andrew will never be able to recount. All he knows is that one moment, Kevin is calling out and speaking to the cultists, and then next, all hell erupts.

It should have been predictable for things to fall into chaos. What isn’t predictable is how fast it happens. Andrew only has time to palm his knives before someone is coming toward him.

Thankfully—though Andrew would never say the word—Seth was ready. He pops up immediately, maul swinging to effect. He scatters the crowds and Andrew almost thinks Neil won’t have to come down, when the sound of feet against packed earth thunder toward them. There are more. More, Andrew thinks, and that is a problem. It is a problem if they don’t know how much energy to conserve, or for how long.

The tone of the battle shifts immediately. It is no longer a simple fight. It is a test of strategy and will, because none of the four know when the flood of new enemies will stop. Andrew cracks a vial over his blades, the blood humming darkly, but he doesn’t cut his arm. He saves that for later, when it might be more necessary.

Somewhere in the middle of a third wave, Andrew considers reminding Kevin that they can leave. Before he can, however, he is distracted—because Neil drops down from a nearby ledge and looks around the battlefield, and the expression on his face is also familiar. It is the resignation of a man about to do something he wish he didn’t have to. Or maybe something he simply hates doing.

Neil is silent. There is no battle cry or noise of pain or energy. He simply _glows_. Andrew can see the blue rise from Neil’s scars, electric and humming. The shiver of magic is clear from a distance. Neil is alight with it and then, suddenly—

—he is gone.

For a maddeningly hysteric moment, Andrew thinks he has imagined it all. That Neil was just a hallucination; that he was a lie. That even if he did exist once, he died from the arrow and Andrew just never knew the difference. How could Neil be real?

Except Andrew sees a trail of blue like the swipe of a paintbrush, out of the corner of his eye. Neil darts along a wall to take down one of the cult leaders, swift and practiced with his daggers. Neil does what the others did not think of; he goes straight for the throat. He systematically moves in and out of reality, a ghost, and has all seven of the cloaked figures on the ground before long.

The dissolution of the command does something. Perhaps the leaders were the ones calling more people to the sewers, because the waves stop and there are only two dozen men in the arena. Seth blows his way through half of them while Kevin easily locks the others in place for Neil and Andrew to dispatch.

Perhaps half an hour after they decided to talk the problem out, the quartet stand among a wasteland of cultists.

“Well, that went about how I expected it to,” Seth says. His chest rises and falls faster than normal, but there is no unevenness to his breathing.

Kevin sighs and crouches by the leaders, already reaching for their robes in a quest to find answers. Andrew ignores him and concentrates on turning to watch the arena. While he does, he does not notice Neil come closer. Not until Neil is barely a foot away and clears his throat.

Andrew pins him with a stare. _I saw what you did._ Neil doesn’t answer. “What?”

“You’re hurt,” Neil says quietly. He gestures with a hand and pulls back, probably thinking he is too close. He is not.

Andrew doesn’t know what to think about the fact that he thinks that.

“Leave it.”

“We’re in the sewers. You should cover it.”

Neil is right. Of course. But Andrew doesn’t want to say that or admit anything; he is more aggravated that his arm was cut. Neil steps closer, patient and offers a hand. Andrew stares at it. “You think your hands are clean?”

“They are,” Neil says quietly. “I wear gloves.”

Right. Right, Andrew remembers. Neil covers up his scars. The gloves Neil wears are at his waist, now. They stick out of his belt haphazardly.

Andrew still does not offer himself up. He watches Neil edge closer, calm and slow, and then Neil reaches out. “Yes?”

“Fine,” Andrew says, by way of answer. Neil hesitates. Andrew almost rolls his eyes. “Yes. Hurry up.”

Andrew wonders why Neil has cloth in his bag—bandages—and then curses himself as an idiot. Neil has glowing magic scars. Of course, he has bandages.

Curiously, Andrew finds himself lingering on the way Neil works. The elf has slow hands—like he is being evaluated, or like someone has threatened him with death if he does not perform well. Andrew doesn’t doubt it. He thinks about Neil and his comments about magic. _Slave._ Andrew wonders if Neil was forced to aid himself, or if he attended to others. Himself, Andrew thinks. With the mouth Neil has, he would be in trouble often.

“Done.” Neil withdraws, and Andrew notes the way the warmth leaves with him. Andrew frowns at that. He does not need warmth, or heat, or anything like it. Especially not from a person.

Kevin rises a few feet away. “There’s not much to find. Let’s go.”

Andrew follows him, but his gaze doesn’t leave Neil the entire way back.

* * *

Neil is curled on his side. He plays a game, shifting his sight in and out of focus as he stares at the grass before his nose. It is almost like passing out.

“Oh, this is depressing.”

The sun is too bright, but Neil looks up anyway. He finds Allison standing next to his head, blonde hair shining and hands on her hips. She stares down at him, distinctly unimpressed.

“It’s a very nice day. Not depressing at all,” Neil replies. He doesn’t intend to sound mocking, but he thinks it might seem that way.

Allison shoots him a sidelong look before turning to look at the yard. It’s meant for training, Wymack had told Neil. For the Foxes to hone their skills and bond. Neil almost laughed at the latter part.

“I need assistance,” Allison finally says. She sounds like she doesn’t need it, but Neil doesn’t say that. In his limited experience, the Foxes do odd things in the name of solidarity. Maybe she’s just trying to offer him something.

“For what?”

“Seth.”

Neil frowns. He lifts his head again, just a little. Allison smirks but he ignores her. “Why?”

“He’s in a mood.” Allison is quiet for a minute, looking out toward the targets in the distance. Apparently, Andrew has never used them. He prefers throwing his knives at things that he shouldn’t.

Neil waits. He doesn’t expect to wait long. He’s right.

Allison pushes her hair away from her face, annoyed. “He’s not—he hasn’t been the same. Not since before. When you went out and got shot for him.”

_So, this is my fault?_ But Allison doesn’t seem angry with him. Neil mulls his answers around. “So? Is it bad?”

“It’s not—anything.” Allison glares at nothing. “He’s stuck.”

“What does that even mean?”

“He’s an addict,” Allison finally snaps. It’s not what Neil expected her to say. “He can’t just…stop. That’s not how it works. It never has.”

Neil cautiously runs his fingers through the grass a few inches in front of him. He thinks of a knife and blue liquid, ice-fire in his veins. _You will be our weapon._ “Why not? Maybe this is what he needed.”

“It’s not. He’s weak,” Allison says, firm. It’s less of a character assassination and more desperate. “He is weak and Ri—someone sees that. Someone will know and take advantage. They’ll kill him.”

Neil barely listens to her anymore. He hears the half-finished name. Knows it.

“What do you want me to do?”

“He wants to go out tonight. I won’t say yes. Make him go with Andrew, instead. He goes out with Kevin and Nicky all the time,” Allison says quickly. “Watch him. Don’t let—just, watch him. Something is going to happen.”

She doesn’t say _I know it_ , but it’s implied. Neil doesn’t agree because his agreement doesn’t matter, even if he feels it. Allison is right, of course. Seth has seemed off since the incident and even Neil, with his limited knowledge of the man, knows that he is weak. Seth is a target and the Foxes, as a ragtag group of mercenaries, are a prime choice.

The Foxes have a reputation. They are frowned upon by most other guilds. Neil knows this; anyone with sense knows it. Seth is vulnerable and the further he wanders from the Foxhole, the worse the consequences could be.

“What makes you think he’ll listen to me?” Neil finally asks.

Allison smiles, but it’s devoid of humor. She finally turns from the practice yard to look at him fully. She has an interesting edge to her, Neil thinks—a sharpness and temper that seems to say she has suffered. All the Foxes have.

“He’ll listen to you,” Allison murmurs. “So, help him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooo howdy boy am I in the middle of moving. Like, right now, my entire apartment is more boxes than free floor space. Anyway.  
> I? May not have internet for like a week when I move? So...uh...Iamsosorry  
> Maybe I'll try to find a McD to upload lmao  
> Anyway! I hope you enjoy this fic and all the dumb crack-y comments that everyone makes. I know I do.


	4. Initiate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil didn't exactly intend to get tangled up with the Foxes, but he's a little past second thoughts. Once he sets foot in Eden's Twilight, Neil realizes he might actually be further in than he thought.  
> There is a choice to make. But before he can make it, someone decides to crash the party, and Neil is forced to take action.

“You what, now?”

Neil didn’t bat an eye. Andrew liked to think he sounded menacing, or at least annoyed—but he was fairly certain Neil was somehow immune. Maybe it was an elf thing.

Or maybe, Andrew decided, Neil was just stupid.

“I’m bringing Seth,” Neil repeated. He was stupid, Andrew decided. “When are we leaving?”

“You are bringing Seth to Eden’s Twilight,” Andrew echoed. He wondered if repeating it to Neil would help him understand. The unfazed expression Neil wore seemed to suggest otherwise. “Does Seth know this?”

“He won’t say no.”

Andrew’s hand twitched where it was curled over the edge of the bar. Further down, Wymack cast a wary look between the two of them.

The thing was, Neil wasn’t wrong. Seth—as well as Nicky and Kevin, probably—would do whatever Neil asked. That was one thing Andrew knew for a fact. What he didn’t know was why. After all, it was impossible for the two arguably most severe Foxes to be enchanted by the same sly elf.

Right?

“You have five minutes,” Andrew says shortly. He doesn’t add that Nicky has clothes for Neil to wear, or that they’re not going straight to Eden’s Twilight. He’ll let Neil find out when they go.

Five minutes later, almost everyone is downstairs. If Nicky knows why his cousin is agitated, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he mindlessly chatters away at Kevin.

Of course, it’s when Andrew turns his back that Neil appears.

“Oh, man,” Nicky gasps. “I didn’t think you would look _that_ good.”

Andrew wants to force himself not to turn around, just to spite his desire to look. He ends up turning halfway, unable not to see what the commotion is about.

In the end, Andrew doesn’t know why he is surprised. He had Nicky buy the clothes, after all. The very form-fitting, dark clothes. Neil seems unbothered by the outfit itself, despite the way it clings to him. The straps of his black leggings are pulled over his shoes. The tunic—which is very much a Nicky choice—is gauzy and black. It teases the tan skin beneath, but more importantly, it hints at the scars. They are faintly visible under the shirt and clearly visible at the slashed arms.

The scars are what Neil is uncomfortable about, Andrew knows. Except as soon as Neil catches Andrew’s gaze, he pointedly stops tugging at his shirt and looks away. When he turns his head, some of his red hair shifts and the bright blue earrings he wears glint.

Andrew decides he really does hate Neil. “Let’s go,” he directs. “I’m done waiting.”

The city streets are bustling with a good amount of traffic. Not enough to congest the sidewalks, but more than enough to for the Foxes to avoid. This time of night, most of the people are on their way home or looking for a distracted pocket to pick.

Sometimes, people stop the Foxes as they wander the city. Andrew has been with the others during the day, when they can’t go five feet in the market before someone asks for their help. The downside of building a reputation seems to be unsolicited requests for help. No one ever goes to the Foxhole, where Wymack is supposed to take care of requests for his boarders. Of course.

Neil, Andrew notices, has peculiar interests. He doesn’t seem to care too much about the people around him. In fact, more than once, Andrew thinks they’ve lost the elf—right before Neil reappears. Neil very plainly ignores most people around him, even if their eyes linger. Instead, his attention falls on bizarre things. Alleyways and awnings. Gates. Fences.

It takes a little while for Andrew to recognize that Neil is perpetually looking for escape routes.

Neil probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, Andrew muses. It come second nature. It isn’t a rogue thing, either—Andrew has never seen Renee consider a staircase the way Neil does. This is entirely Neil and Andrew has the distinct, uneasy feeling that it has to do with his time on the run.

Eden’s Twilight is close. As the sky darkens, Andrew can see the lights pulse from under the front door. There’s parlor magic involved in the colors that spill through the cracks, from purple to blue and pink, and Andrew doesn’t like parlor magic. It’s cheap.

But he doesn’t mind the lights in Eden’s Twilight.

Nicky is practically vibrating when they walk through the front door. Eden’s Twilight is one of his favorite places, after all. It belongs to undertown—and it, like the Foxes and the people that populate this shabby portion of the city, is misfit.

Eden’s Twilight is a painted black structure that looms over the street; its back borders the shallow end of the docks. It is a tavern that is closed by day and opens some indeterminable time of night, somehow smoothly running and filled without any lulls in business. Andrew has never caught it opening or closing, despite his attempts. He thinks it might be enchantment.

“Finally.” Kevin sighs audibly as he pushes his way into the tavern.

The music and raucous laughter multiplies the moment they set foot inside. Andrew prods Kevin’s back when the man wanders too close to the bar. They have a method and Andrew is not about to change it just because they’ve gained a member with pointed ears and stares.

Once they manage to find a crowded-in table at the far end of the tavern, Andrew crooks a finger at Neil. He doesn’t feel like speaking and he has the sense that Neil knows well enough to follow.

The bar is busy. It always is but Roland makes easy work of the crowd. He has it down to an art, the same way he times the opening of the bar and crowd control. At least, Andrew suspects those things are Roland’s doing. Andrew has never actually asked if someone else owns the place.

“Usual? Wh—” Roland’s roving gaze lands on Neil and he pauses midway through pouring something into a heavy mug.

Andrew can’t blame Roland for looking.

No—actually, he can, and Andrew can also blame Roland for reminding him that Neil is wearing something different than his usual covered-up outfit.

“Yes.” Andrew raises his voice more than strictly necessary. “The usual.”

Roland hums in response. He’s distracted. Andrew is tempted to snap his fingers in front of the man’s face. It takes a lot to resist. When Roland finally starts to turn his attention to the drinks, Andrew’s eyes slide toward Neil.

The first thing Andrew notices is the hard edge that runs up Neil’s back. He’s almost ramrod straight. His eyes skip over the people in the club; he seems to be watching the doors instead, probably still calculating exits and escape plans.

“You’re doing a bad job of watching your pet asshole.” Andrew leans against the bar. He doesn’t look back at Seth, who is probably sulking next to Kevin.

Neil doesn’t stop looking around the tavern. He also doesn’t get to say anything, because suddenly Seth is speaking from Andrew’s other side. “I thought you didn’t like people watching you.”

Andrew turns very slowly to stare at the uninvited interloper. Seth seems to have caught whatever idiot disease Neil has; he doesn’t seem affected by Andrew’s glare. _I’m going to have to fix that. Again._

“You’re being watched.” Neil’s voice drops so low Andrew almost doesn’t hear it. But he does and then he turns to see, skin already itching with pent-up energy.

What Andrew finds is not an assassin or even one of the Ravens, from the other end of undertown. Instead, he sees a man very clearly giving Andrew the eye.

Andrew takes a second to silently evaluate the situation. He decides it’s going to take longer than a second to unpack what just happened and settles on giving the stranger a warning glare before turning around again. Andrew finds Seth bleakly gazing at the man that had been ogling Andrew. His eyes turn onto Andrew and in that moment—in that cursed moment—they understand each other fully.

Seth reaches for one of the glasses Roland slides onto the bar. “You know, I think I actually feel bad for you.” He downs the drink in one go, but his eyes never leave Andrew. “I didn’t think it was fucking possible.”

Andrew wants to tell Seth where he can shove his sympathy, but the man takes Roland’s tray of drinks and winds his way back toward the table. Andrew is left with Neil, who is warily evaluating the rest of the tavern like he expects to find a thief crouching under one of the tables.

_I feel bad for me, too._ Andrew also feels like he’s an idiot and he’s not sure why he hasn’t ended this, already. It should be so simple to back away from Neil. So easy for Andrew to cut himself off. But it isn’t.

“No one will touch us here.” Andrew gives Neil a pointed look and takes the double shot Roland silently offers. Andrew ignores the bartender’s amused grin. “That is a fact.”

“That is not a fact,” Neil mutters. There’s something cold and distant in his eyes when he speaks. He’s looking at something in the distance and maybe the past. Neil is not in the moment, anymore—if he ever was. “That is a wish. Wishes aren’t real.”

For some reason, that pisses Andrew off. In any other moment, he would agree. He would never have said it in the first place. But it is true—between Roland and the men in the club that hold a disturbing flame for Kevin, Andrew is certain that no one could attack the Foxes without inadvertently giving them ample warning time.

Andrew silently walks away from the bar. Neil follows again and Andrew bites down on his words like raw leather. “It is the truth. These are our people. It is the one place we don’t have to hide.”

Maybe some wisdom rubs off on Neil, because he doesn’t argue again. He just follows Andrew to the table where Seth and Kevin are waiting. Kevin is impatient for his drinks; he quickly tips two of them into his mouth and takes off toward the bar, probably to convince Roland of an entire tray.

Andrew tries not to care about Neil, or the way he keeps his hands under the table and stares blankly into the contents of the glass set before him.

It’s almost fucking impossible to do.

* * *

Eden’s Twilight is noisy. The people inside laugh and dance about nothing and Neil—

—Neil doesn’t know what to do with the revelry. With how free it seems.

He keeps expecting someone to emerge from the darkness. A figure at the doorstep, right in the shadows. Someone to remind Neil that he is on borrowed time and it won’t be long before someone comes to collect.

“Isn’t that Aaron?” Nicky leans over the table, squinting a little. He’s had half as many drinks as Kevin, but with the way he is, Nicky doesn’t need a drink to be happy. He’s been smiling since before they set foot in the tavern.

Andrew looks up from his glass. He’d been glaring at it for the past half hour. “Where?”

“In the corner.”

Andrew’s mouth is a displeased line. He shifts away from the table, steady despite his drinking, and glances at his cousin. Then his eyes land on Neil. “Don’t move.”

Neil is tempted to walk away just to spite Andrew. He doesn’t because in this strange place, his survival instinct wins out over his stubbornness. For once.

“We can leave.” This from Seth, whom Neil is certain will probably hang himself if they stay too long.

Allison was right about him. He couldn’t just change. There’s a storm of bad habits brewing around him and Neil gets the feeling that Seth is just a push in the wrong direction away from starting a fight. _And that’s his addiction,_ Neil thinks. _He needs something to fight so badly that he’ll make an enemy just to fight one._

They _are_ alike. Neil knows it with a cold certainty. Seth is a possible future. He is what happens when a hunted man’s running finally ends, and he finds himself in a place where he does not have to run. There is too much peace with the Foxes. Neil would bet his worthless life on the fact that Seth has had to fight since he was born and now, with a roof and friends and money, he has no clue how to live.

It happens to soldiers, too. Only, the Foxes are fighting a very different war.

“No.” Neil finally answers Seth’s question. It’s not what Seth wants to hear, but that’s too bad. “I should keep an eye on Kevin.”

“Why? What did he do for you?”

Neil shrugs. “He hasn’t, yet. But he said he would help.”

_Protecting an investment?_ There’s a mocking voice in Neil’s head. He stubbornly ignores it. Instead, he concentrates on Seth’s body beside him. The man is solid. That’s the only way Neil can describe him. Seth isn’t nearly as immovable as Andrew—if anything, he is too easily pushed—but Seth is substantial. He is real. Seth is raw in a way Neil can’t explain and that, after so many years of being a ghost, is nice.

“What do you think Aaron is doing here?”

“Sulking.” Seth sighs and combs a hand through his hair. “Katelyn probably got pissed at him.”

“Katelyn?”

“They’re together. Secretly, obviously. The psycho would probably kill her if he found out and maybe even Aaron, too.”

Neil pauses in the middle of tracing the condensation on his still-full glass. He thinks about Andrew’s peculiar loyalties and the way he watches Kevin and Neil. _What was it they promised to each other?_ He is so caught up in the question that he doesn’t notice Seth leave until it’s too late.

The warmth is gone. Neil practically bolts upright. He can feel a familiar thread of urgency slither in his mind as he scans the tavern. _He could not disappear. He is somewhere here._ Except Neil doesn’t see him and Andrew is back again, this time with Aaron and a new glass of something.

Aaron looks like he is having teeth pulled. There is something complex in the way he looks at Neil. It’s always been there. Neil has no clue what he did to deserve it.

“I need to—”

“Drink.” Andrew extends the glass toward Neil. His free hand reaches for another glass on the table.

Neil resists the urge to shove past the twins. _You need this people._ “I can’t. I need to—”

“Can’t or won’t?” Andrew watches him with his deeply glittering eyes, head tilted to the side just a little like the cats that hang around the docks. “Are you going to be a Fox? Or are you going to be a runaway slave?”

It’s laughably unfair. Neil appreciates it. Life isn’t fair, after all, and why should it start being fair to him? Andrew is right. Neil can’t expect help from the Foxes without making his position clear.

Except they don’t know who Neil is running from. They don’t know the mess that is darktown, or how the Ravens are not the only old family in bad business that run the city from beneath. The Foxes are only concerned with the Ravens—with the rival guild that exploits its patrons more than it helps them. The Foxes know nothing about the wolves in the shadows.

The Executioner.

Neil takes the drink from Andrew. He doesn’t care what it is or why Andrew wants him to drink it. All Neil cares about is that Seth is missing, and Allison asked Neil to watch him. Seth needs help and Neil would have given it without being asked, because help is all that he can give. He has nothing; is nothing.

_I can’t pay them back in money or fame. All I can give is my life._

So, he does. Neil downs the bitter liquid and shoves the glass onto the table before turning and wheeling toward the front of the tavern. He makes it three feet before his head starts to whirl. For a second, he thinks it’s the lights—the shifting colors that paint the walls and floor. Then, Neil realizes the whirling is inside. He feels as if the compass in his chest has tilted. He can barely put one foot in front of the other.

_Poisoner._ Neil remembers guessing at the Foxes’ talents, just a day or two ago. He wants to laugh. He wonders if Aaron willingly gave his talents, or if he had some reservations. If Aaron’s uncertainty was because he thought Neil would never look at him the same way again.

He would be right.

_Find Seth. Find him._ Neil can hardly focus. He hits a wall, his shoulder blazing with pain, but it’s muted. There is a fog between him and the world, cotton in his mouth. Syrup. Neil is going to drown. He can hardly hold his head up.

Somehow, Neil makes it to the front door. He slams against the walls of the tavern and hears something to his right, near the back of the building. Neil reels toward the back, keenly aware of the water lapping just below his feet. The chill of its depths and the rocks. He can’t focus on any of it; he has to move. _Move,_ he tells himself, _and this will end._

Seth is struggling against two men. A third one stands before him, reaching into his pocket. Neil breathes in and out. He has never done this while drugged.

“Step away, before I make you.” Neil stands as straight as he can. The world tilts but he ignores it. He fights to stare at the men before him.

A flash of panic breaks Seth’s hard mask. He is worried for Neil. Funny, Neil thinks. He shouldn’t be. Seth is the one in danger.

The man facing Seth turns, clearly agitated at the interruption. He doesn’t speak. Neil sighs and closes his eyes, just for the respite of darkness and the peace before the chaos. “I told you to step away.”

He lets the magic through. It is an invader that slinks beneath his skin and pushes everything else out of its way. It warps through his bones and blood, condensing Neil to a hard knot in his heart and replacing him with something else. With a wolf.

The blue is there. The Wolf knows it like he knows his face and his father’s face, Riko’s and Jean’s and all the others. The Wolf, Nathaniel, does not hesitate. He acts.

Nathaniel acknowledges the drugs in his body. He calculates the difference in reaction time and the possibility of injury. He decides that it is worth it to move. The magic will eat through his body anyway; it’ll eat through the drugs, too.

Nathaniel lunges. He grabs the man before him by the shoulders and tosses him to the ground. He wrenches the man’s arm until it dislocates, ignoring the screams that follow. Nathaniel would kill him and all the others, but the knot in his heart is a heavy weight. It reminds him to stop, just before he reaches the end.

The other two men abandon Seth. He is not so important as their lives, it seems. One comes toward Nathaniel with a blade drawn. Nathaniel avoids it; he holds off the second man with one hand. Nathaniel is strong. The magic in him chews his insides and spits out raw power. He cracks the second man’s wrist without intending to. The screaming echoes in his ears. The man with the blade slips and Nathaniel doesn’t dodge in time. It cuts through the nothingness of his gauzy shirt and bites his side.

Nathaniel peers down at the wound. The blood looks black in the night. Nathaniel’s blue eyes slide up to the man with the blade. He looks scared. _Good._ Nathaniel wrenches the man’s hand and hears the blade clatter. He catches the handle with the toe of his shoe and waits for it to flip into the air. Nathaniel releases the man and catches the knife in one fluid motion; he flips it around and backhands the man, leaving a thin scar across his face from the blade. The man falls to his knees.

The one with the broken wrist is still screaming through his teeth. Nathaniel brings the man’s shoulders down and knees him in the stomach. Breathless, the man is not a threat. He is just a mess, in pain and unwilling to fight any longer.

A beat. Nathaniel impassively surveys the carnage. He finds everything in order and raises his voice again. “Leave. Now. This is your only warning. If I happen to see you again, you will not survive it.”

The men pick themselves up. It takes a good while for them to stutter and stumble out of the alley. Nathaniel can hear the lapping of the waves, again. He can smell the salt of the ocean under the faint metallic ring of blood.

Seth’s hand is pressed to his neck. There’s a small nick at his throat, but it is no longer bleeding. He hasn’t noticed.

Nathaniel expects running. Blame. Anger, fear. Anything.

Anything but the way Seth crosses the distance between them and shoves Nathaniel’s shirt up to examine the cut on his side. “Damn it. We need to get back.”

_Why?_ Too many questions. Too much. The magic subsides cruelly, just as it came. It feels like extracting an arrow with the fletching still attached. Ragged and raw. The magic burns through muscle and flesh and bone. It does not care. Neil comes back, knot loosened, and the first thing he says is, “Why?”

“Abby should look at you.” It’s not an answer to the question Neil meant. They both know it. Seth avoids Neil’s eyes and Neil realizes he doesn’t want to think about it, either. Seth doesn’t want to think about why he cares, or why he listens to Neil when he won’t listen to anyone else.

Seth presses his hand to his eyes. There is dry blood on the back of it. Neil almost reaches out to clean it because he knows it’s not good to leave it that way, like a reminder. He is stopped by the sound of voices at his back.

“That was pretty awesome.” Nicky clears his throat, clearly tipsy and maybe nervous. _Because of me? What I did? Or something else?_ “But, uh. We should—we should probably go.”

Neil turns and finds the trio at the end of the dock. Kevin is silent. He looks pale, but it might be the moonlight; Neil isn’t sure. He certainly looks more sober than he did inside the tavern. Nicky shifts his weight between his feet. His mouth is red, and his hair is in disarray. Instead of fear or disgust, he looks at Neil with open concern.

It’s Andrew that catches Neil’s attention. Andrew, who drugged him. The man is staring, and he seems to be…behind, is the only word for it. As if he is seeing things from a minute ago and is only just catching up. Andrew’s eyes travel over Neil’s scars, toward the marks on his face and finally to his eyes.

When Andrew looks at him, Neil looks back, challenging. Neil is very certain that Andrew must want him dead. _But I am already a dead man. I can’t give him that. He will have to wait for it to end, and until then, he is only in my way._

Andrew doesn’t back down. Neil didn’t expect him to. Instead, the man just holds Neil’s gaze and opens his mouth. “Let’s go. I think it’s time we had a guild meeting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...am kind of? Alive? Thank you all so much for waiting on me. It means so much, especially after the horror and bullshit that came with moving. I don't think I have ever been so stressed and demoralized in my life, and coming back to your comments and love has saved me like nothing else. So, thank you. I can never say it enough.  
> I hope you're enjoying the story. I know I'm enjoying it. This is the closest thing to crack that I've ever written and I am having so much fun making our favorite boys meme-y and magical. This AU has kind of warmed me up to fantasy again.  
> As always, please read, review if you can, and above all, enjoy! This is for you as much as it is for me. I like to hear what you like and what you want to see. I'm always open for requests.


	5. Challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems like Neil can't get away with just slipping into the guild. Andrew is testing him and Neil is fed up with the blood mage.  
> Neil makes the decision to give something up, as reluctant as he is. He reminds himself what his true purpose is and that he cannot take the Foxes to heart, when his will stop beating soon.  
> In the meantime, why not dig his grave a little deeper?

No one is around, yet. Andrew watches Neil, with his bright eyes and hair in disarray from the tavern. He has one leg thrown over the other, reclined in a seat at the bar. His gaze is sharp.

Andrew itches to do—something. He’s not sure what, yet.

“Keep looking at me like that, and I might just think you want to fight.”

“I don’t want to fight,” Neil says simply.

That’s what he says, but Andrew can see a glint of something sharp, like steel, in Neil’s eyes. It turns the blue more of an icy silver. Andrew thinks that maybe, in another life or situation, Neil would take Andrew up on the offer.

That would be fun. _Very_ fun.

Wymack appears at the bar, emerging from the kitchen with a suffering expression and some of the Foxes in tow. They settle themselves around the bar and Andrew notices Kevin yawning, clearly annoyed at having been dragged to the meeting.

“So?” Wymack crosses his arms. “What’s this about?”

Andrew turns to pin Neil with his stare. Usually, this is all it takes—a pointed look and any of the Foxes would talk. Some would be more reluctant than others, but they would talk.

Neil, however, just stares back at Andrew. Neil is still reclined in his seat, the picture of ease, one leg over another. Yet there are edges to his repose—sharp corners that betray the simmering _something_ below the surface.

This is fun, too. “Your newest acquisition did some very interesting things to two men, tonight.”

“Three,” Neil corrects. He finally opens his mouth to talk and Andrew actually pauses. He watches Neil readjust—swapping which leg is crossed over the other—and absently pick at a thread on his sleeve.

Andrew vacillates between wanting to shove a knife through Neil’s bastard hands and wanting to tangle his hand in that mess of red-brown hair. Maybe just pull Neil a little closer, to see if he really is there. To figure out how he could ever be real.

“We brought him on for assistance. Why is it surprising that he assisted?” Matt’s question is tense, barely-masked sharpness lingering beneath the words. He thinks he can save Neil from Andrew. He’s a little late.

“He’s not technically one of us,” Aaron mutters. It’s like pulling teeth. Andrew isn’t sure whether Aaron hates backing him up, or if Aaron simply dislikes the meeting. Maybe it’s more.

Neil’s gaze swivels to Aaron. Andrew’s gut reaction to the calculation he sees is to fight it—to throw Neil to the ground and tell him he is not allowed to look. But Neil has no intent in the lines of his body. Just a cold evaluation. He takes all of three seconds to determine whatever it is he needs to and then Neil’s eyes are back on Andrew.

“He’s here and he’s helping. He’s saved Seth twice,” Nicky points out, startled. “How does that not make him one of us?”

“We don’t know anything about him.” Aaron submits this with his hands curled under the ledge of the bar. He thinks he is digging himself further into a grave with someone he does not want to care about.

He is half right.

“He doesn’t have to tell us,” Nicky says sharply. It’s the closest to serious he can get. “Isn’t this why we became who we are? Aren’t the Foxes about making something new? Better?”

“How charming,” Andrew says drily.

Nicky shoots his cousin a look. _Now, that’s interesting._ He might still be scared, but Nicky is apparently wiling to push his luck with standing up to Andrew. _Because of Neil?_

“All right,” Wymack interrupts, his hands held up in surrender. “You want to make that argument, fine. But we haven’t exactly been forthcoming, either.”

He’s right, of course. Andrew just finds it tiresome that Wymack pointed it out. Nicky seems bolstered a little by the man’s words. Like saying the Foxes have to give a little means Neil will be willing to give, too. Andrew wants to laugh.

Neil has given everything, already. Asking for anything else would scrape the bottom and scrape the skin. Andrew has a feeling at this point, saving his skin is all Neil has left.

This is why, when Neil straightens a little in his chair, Andrew is not prepared for what comes out of the elf’s mouth.

“So?” Neil looks directly at Andrew, his blue eyes opalescent. “What is it you want me to tell you?”

The challenge runs down Andrew’s spine like a trickle of cold water. He half expects to see magic flooding from Neil’s fingertips—but no; this is all Neil. All the way his gaze makes Andrew unable to look away. He can only stare back at Neil, silent, something itching under his skin.

_I could make him give me everything, right now._

Andrew recoils from the thought. Something sour fills his mouth.

He knows what has pushed him to push Neil so far. Andrew needs to know how much of a threat Neil is—needs to know if that blue-white magic could turn against the Foxes. Andrew has seen what it does. He has seen just a little sliver; a hint of what could be behind Neil’s clever eyes and bright hair. Andrew doesn’t know if he can trust what lingers there. The danger that Neil could pose.

It doesn’t matter that Neil has only ever turned on people that have turned on the Foxes. That Neil has saved Seth. Andrew does not trust the magic.

He never has.

“That’s enough.” Wymack’s voice is firm and final. He moves from behind the bar and gestures with a hand. “If he has to talk, he talks to Bee.”

There is no way Andrew can argue with that. Wymack knows, which is probably why he steps in.

“There. Problem solved,” Nicky says, relieved. He still sounds nervous. He knows Andrew is not happy about his interruption, before.

“Sure, it is,” Kevin mutters.

For once, he’s not wrong.

* * *

All the stubbornness and surety he has is leaking out like cold magic. Neil almost presses hands to his mouth and nose to stop the invisible tide.

Wymack is mostly quiet. At least, until they reach a door at the back of the tavern. “She won’t tell anyone what you tell her, unless it puts us in danger. Then, she tells me. Understand?”

“I understand.” _All too well._ This is a minefield.

For a moment, Neil considers leaving.

He could do it. He’s been on the run this long. He could do it again. _But I don’t want to,_ a tiny voice says. It is a selfish voice. A self-centered seed of desire, grabbing at the chance to have something that hasn’t been tainted. Something Neil could be part of. Something he could save. Something he could give life.

Instead of the death he so often brings with him.

Almost immediately, Neil wants to leave. The office inside reminds him too much of another. He tries to focus on the different details—the warmer tone to the oak desk, the high windows with gauzy curtains, the scent of tea and honey.

All he sees is a small room with one escape.

“Hi. I’m Betsy Dobson,” the woman says. She seems nice. Smiles. Has intelligent, if sympathetic, eyes. Does not linger on Neil’s scars. _Probably because someone warned her._ “You can call me Bee or really anything else. The important thing is that you call me.”

Neil stares. He wonders if she meant to be that cliché or if it just comes naturally. Suddenly, he is far less comfortable with the entire experience.

Betsy seems to take his silence as cue to fill it up some more. She gets up from her desk and moves toward a teapot in the corner. “Would you like a cup?”

“No.”

She nods, once. Like his response is significant. Neil wonders how much she thinks she can analyze from two letters. Maybe she makes a game of it, like Andrew does with pulling Neil apart.

That brings a flash of irritation to the surface. _Andrew._ Neil is almost completely certain that Andrew drugged him at Eden’s Twilight, probably with Aaron’s equipment. Neil isn’t sure if he can be disappointed in Aaron. He’s not sure that it matters.

The thing happened, and Neil can’t do much to take it back. He really doesn’t want to.

“Anything you tell me will stay with me,” Betsy starts. She sits in her chair and stirs her tea. “I will only pass on information if it puts everyone at risk—and if I do, I will do my best to keep personal details out.”

_Funny._ If Betsy tells Wymack anything, she won’t be able to keep personal details out. Neil taps his fingers on the arm of his chair. Considers.

He could be forthcoming. Or he could hide behind the target the Foxes already have painted on their backs. _And why not?_ It would be two birds with one stone. Allies gained, and an enemy determined.

“There is nothing I am bringing down on them.” Neil gives this truth—because it is a truth—without hesitation. “What enemies the Foxes have are mine. That is all.”

He’s lucky. Lucky that Betsy looks at him with sympathy and pity that leaks into her gaze. That she probably thinks he just wants a place to belong—something to fight for—and this is all an unfortunate formality.

She’s not entirely wrong.

Neil wants this. Wants the Foxes. He wants the elusive bonds they have; the spiderweb of sticky relationships that tangle them as much as hold them together. Neil wants to pull at each thread and set it straight, to find the pattern and beauty there—

—at least before he dies.

“What do you think about this? Having to talk to me?”

“I think Andrew does not know how to prioritize.”

Betsy contemplates his answer. Again, like it means something more. “You think he’s wrong to worry that you might be dangerous to the Foxes? That he wants to keep them safe?”

_He’s selfish,_ Neil thinks.

Then, _like me._

Andrew did not shove Neil in front of the carriage because he wanted to keep Allison or Seth or anyone else safe. Possibly the only people he works to keep safe are Kevin, Aaron, and maybe Nicky. Even then, his definition of safety isn’t the same as most people’s.

No. This interrogation isn’t about Andrew caring. It is more about him needing—needing to know, needing to push Neil, needing to take apart the newest Fox with detail and sharpness. Andrew’s little vials of blood were probably extracted with as much care as he is showing Neil, now.

“I think Andrew should be worried about the real threat,” Neil says shortly. He remembers he shouldn’t know names or details, so he dials back the rebuke on his tongue. “I think whatever the Foxes are fighting is worth more attention than me.”

“That threat isn’t living under this roof.”

“Do you know that?”

Betsy hesitates. Her hand on the handle of the teacup falters.

It’s what he needed. Neil can see the question that lingers—probably a long-held fear. She’s not the only one, either. Neil has caught snatches of it in others.

Kevin.

The Foxes are split. There are those like Matt and Dan, whose strong sense of family has allowed them to accept Kevin. Then there are those like Seth and Allison, who see that Kevin is not as impervious as he might seem to everyone else. That the biggest threat could not come from outside, but from within.

After all, the Foxes are only as strong as their reason to fight. And right now, Kevin isn’t enough to hold them all up together.

_This is why I have to stay. Why I have to do something. It’s not all about me._

Neil locks everything away—his sourness at Andrew’s drugging, his dull pain at being exposed this way, his burning desire to have and hold something real. Neil locks it all deep inside and turns his attention to what he has to do. Why he agreed to come with the Foxes in the first place.

If this is how he gets to Riko—falling in with another enemy and using their mass to hide his movements—then this is what Neil must do.

“That’s it,” Neil says, standing. He doesn’t give Betsy the pleasure. She watches him, hand still curled around her teacup. “You can tell him what you want.”

* * *

“Get dressed, we’re going to shake down some merchants.”

Seth tosses an apple to Neil, who stands on the stairs, eyes still hazy with sleep. Andrew does not turn to fully watch him.

But it’s not like he can ignore his periphery.

Neil disappears back up the stairs. He comes down barely three minutes later, laced up and silent. Sometime during his stay, he managed to patch up the mess of his shirt that had been torn when he was shot. It’s a surprisingly neat job.

“Where are we going?” Neil examines his apple as he sits next to Seth at the bar.

“Uptown. The market right by the docks.”

“What for?”

Seth shrugs. He glances at the stairs again, waiting for Kevin to appear. “A job. Someone came to us to say that a merchant wasn’t paying for his spot. He was also buying up things from the refugees in the area and paying them like shit.”

Neil nods. He doesn’t speak; his mouth is full of apple. Andrew wonders if Neil simply never makes noise. His bite certainly didn’t.

Kevin finally descends, his cloak already fluttering agitatedly. It’s almost as animated as he is, some days. The inky feathers by his collar flutter a little, tickling the sigil on his cheek. _The Two of Six._ It’s an unwarranted reminder every time Andrew looks at it.

Half of Andrew’s annoyance at Kevin stems from the tattoo. The other half is entirely Kevin.

“Let’s go.” Kevin brushes past the others without much thought. He is already in his own head, probably imagining the best way to finish the job.

The walk to the uptown market is mostly silent. The city around them makes up for it—there are people chattering and life follows it usual bustling pattern. Guards patrol halfheartedly with no real danger to look out for. It’s late morning and the sun is preparing to beat down on the people below.

The uptown market rests by the docks. It’s in a little square, naturally illuminated but protected by colorful awnings of gauzy cloth. The stalls here are nicer than the ones in the rest of the city and their owners are more richly clothed. While some vendors sell the usual—potions and weapons and such—there are some selling more precious items. Focus stones for sorcerers and gem-dotted jewelry.

It is disgusting in its opulence. Each pretty thing is just an excuse to make money off the power of someone stronger. Off the pain of the weaker. These are blood adornments, paid for in the weeping of lesser creatures.

“There.” Kevin points to a corner stall, tucked away in the shade. There aren’t many people around and most of them are at the trinket booths. When the Foxes descend on the stall, there are no witnesses.

The man at the stall glances up, then looks down. He looks up a second later, panic clear on his features.

Seth thuds his weapon on the stone underfoot; he leans against a wall and pointedly trains his gaze away, on the crowd. He is good for this one thing, Andrew admits. Intimidation.

“I—well, I have very fine wares in today, gentlemen.” The merchant licks his lips, a quick dart of his tongue while his eyes bounce around the market behind the Foxes. Like he thinks he will find assistance.

Kevin’s hands impatiently rest on his hips. “We’re not here for your goods.”

_He always was a talker._

“Then, ah—to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“You haven’t been paying your rent,” Kevin says shortly. “There are no exceptions to the rule. The guard may not be able to get involved with business, but the Merchant Guild doesn’t appreciate what you’ve done.”

Andrew notices for the first time that Neil has disappeared. Or, rather, he has slipped away behind a pillar. Neil stands just to the left of the merchant, clearly prepared for something far more dangerous than intimidation. Andrew almost laughs at the absurd picture that is the elf—lurking in the shadows, as if he thinks the merchant is hiding a broadsword and will cut them all down if things go badly.

“Who told you this? Likely a rival merchant, I suppose.” The man puffs up a little with false indignation. He gives Kevin a pitying look, which is his first real mistake. “I am sorry, sir. It seems someone has misled you. I suspect they meant to frighten me out of business. And tarnish your good name, no less!”

“Good name,” Andrew echoes, unable to stop himself. He laughs.

The merchant stares, wide-eyed. He does not miss the blood vials that rest on Andrew’s chest or the black bands at his arms.

Andrew would have been miffed if he had.

Panic and desperation take over. The merchant loses his confidence. “You—you can’t—"

“Oh? What is this? A disturbance?”

Andrew knows that voice. He knows the cold indifference and the princely affectation.

Riko.

The shadow sorcerer approaches the Foxes from behind, each step deliberate and soft. He is darkly clothed—to a stranger, it might seem as if he were wearing black, but Andrew knows better. This man is clothed in deep purple-blue. It absorbs the sun and does not let go.

Like Kevin, Riko is adorned with feathers. Unlike Kevin, they are not a simple afterthought. They are strategic and painstakingly deliberate. There is one on a chain that laces through piercings in his ear. Another hangs from a cord that twines around his neck. There is one on his ring finger, small and pointed. Some that move with his hair, at the right side of his head.

It must take Riko hours to get dressed in the morning. Perhaps that is why he is always so cranky.

Kevin chokes. Of course, he does. “What—"

“Kevin. I am not surprised.” Riko tilts his head. He does not smile. His hands are curled passively around an ebony staff, but the tension in his fingers betray a coiled readiness. “You and your animals, in uptown? I would have thought you knew better.”

“I only see one pig.” This from Seth. Andrew realizes that at some point, Seth moved to block Andrew’s immediate path to Riko. Maybe he expected a more blatant course of action.

Andrew is ready to take action, of course. The only thing that has stopped him from killing Riko right there is the way he feels something static hovering over his skin.

Magic, Andrew realizes. Not just simple enchantment, either. Not Riko’s shadows. Not anything that Andrew is familiar with.

This feels oddly protective. Vicious. Andrew has a mental image of a wolf with its teeth bared, snarling at a bear three times its size.

_Oh._

Neil slides out of his hiding spot. He does not even acknowledge Riko and that—

—that makes Andrew want to laugh. He is not sure whether the laughter would be humor or amusement. Maybe disbelief.

Andrew watches Neil sidle up to the forgotten merchant. The elf leans on the table, delicate, and slides to sit on the surface. He disturbs the neatly-laid wares but does not care. Neil leans back on one hand, his body all lithe lines of relaxation. As Andrew watches, the elf’s scars glow a soft blue. This is not the same as the fight in the alley, with ice and movement.

Neil speaks softly, almost conspiratory. “Why don’t you take your leave? Directly to the guild. Don’t worry. I’ll watch your wares.”

The way he says it sound silken. Much more like a hushed offer for something else—and Andrew can hear Neil, speaking in another tone, perhaps offering something more private. Intimate.

Andrew is _not_ going there. He slams the door on his thoughts, violently forcing himself into the present. He watches the merchant scurry off, something like terror or bewitchment in his expression. The man disappears, and Neil is left on the table, looking for all the world like some parody of a sales girl.

“Oh? How interesting.” Riko smiles. It is the barest twitch of his lips and he steps forward, sedate as usual, before Seth edges into his path.

“We don’t take fan mail.” Seth sneers. “Take your pigeons somewhere else.”

Riko’s eyes flash. He is about to do something. Andrew has no compulsion to act—after all, he is not concerned with Seth—but Neil cannot claim the same.

Finally, Neil turns and finds Riko. He maintains his pose, seemingly relaxed as a beachgoer. Andrew watches Neil evaluate the stranger with his cold eyes, scars still softly illuminated with the remnant of his magic.

“What’s this? A feathered nuisance? We only need one of those, thank you.”

Andrew almost chokes. Kevin does. It’s such an absurdly nonchalant comment, directed at the man that leads the only other guild in the city that challenges the Foxes. The guild with pins in every important institution. Riko is the shadow master, and Neil dismisses him like a street performer.

“Big words from a little dog.” Riko smiles easily, as if this is a conversation he has had before. He takes another step forward. When Seth starts to move, Neil distractedly waves him away.

_Hm. Interesting._

Andrew wants to end this, now—but this is compelling. This dance that Riko and Neil do transfixes him. With Kevin, Andrew thinks it is more like a tense avoidance. A dance of barely-constrained fear and respect.

Neil’s dance is more to Andrew’s liking. It is somehow playful—or perhaps that is not the right word. Maybe it is more chaotic.

“You know, it’s sad that you think you have to steal business as it is happening.” Neil crosses his legs, resting his cheek in his hand as if he is talking to any one of the Foxes. As if he is not in danger. Andrew wonders if the elf even knows. “What kind of honor is there in that? You are quite the carrion crow.”

For the first time that Andrew can remember, Riko colors. There’s a spot of red on his cheeks; the beginnings of rage. _That_ is amusing. Very, very amusing.

“You are playing a dangerous game,” Riko replies lowly. “With a very lacking group. I suggest you consider the consequences of this. Before you lose your opportunity to find my good grace.”

“You have one of those? It must not be very big. Although, not much about you is.”

This time it is Seth that audibly chokes, eyes wide. He seems stuck between horror and admiration. Andrew can only half relate.

Riko finally snaps. He strides up to Neil and Kevin moves too late, turning with a ragged noise in his throat and terror in his eyes.

It would be too late, anyway. Riko leans in and says, barely whispering, “Enjoy your stolen time. I will end you in fire and salt, just the way you all deserved.”

When Riko takes a step back, Andrew sees it—the shift in Neil. The sideways slide that overcomes him, when his magic rises to the surface in full force.

Andrew is aware that he should stop it. He is fully aware that Neil is about to dig himself into a grave he cannot climb out of.

But it is too mesmerizing to watch.

Neil—not Neil; something else, like the wolf mask he wears—delicately lifts himself off the table. This wolf takes steps the way Riko does, carefully picked, but he does not have the same self-importance. Instead, Neil’s pacing is hungry. Powerful. Where Riko pretends at being a threat, Neil is a real one.

Riko’s back is turned. Neil reaches out with—

—with _his knife_ —

—and then Riko turns, fury and coldness in his eyes. Riko’s men tense but Riko holds a hand up, his teeth bared in challenge.

Neil looks up at that cold face and does not flinch. He only speaks softly, the same velvet in his voice. The same but tinged with the scent of copper and death, now. “You will get what you deserve, before this is done. It will not be quick. You will not see it coming. But I will be there, dead or not, to watch you fall to your knees and beg.”

That is all he says. Neil tucks the knife away, his blue eyes holding Riko’s like the cage they are. The mortal shell that only just holds back the tide of magic.

Riko is the one to break away. He turns, a whirl of his cloak and snap of his fingers, and he is gone. Riko and all his Ravens.

Kevin breathes shakily, turning to face Neil. He is pale, and his eyes are a flurry of disbelief and fear. He is a mess of conflicting emotions and dread. “What have you done?”

Silence. Neil might be bleeding back into himself; Andrew waits to see.

While he waits, Seth leans back against the wall again, appraising. “Whatever he did, I’d like to see it again.”

Andrew can’t help but agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you're okay sticking around while I deal with kind of an upset posting schedule from moving. I'm trying hard to dig my way out of moving debt and I'm really happy that people are still following!  
> As a side note, I do have a ko-fi with the username bellasandwhistles. You can find me on other media through there. I just don't like directly linking my social through here, since I try to pretend to my family that I'm semi-normal on Twitter, lol.  
> Anyway! Please enjoy. And if you can guess why Riko is a Shadow Sorcerer...props to you ;D I've got Plans~


	6. Congregate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riko is a problem that won't disappear. In that way, he is just another recurring nightmare that Neil must deal with.  
> Fortunately, Neil has the Foxes on his side. Something he wants to protect, with what little time he has left. In their own ways, the Foxes protect him, too.

“A what?”

“A…meeting,” Kevin repeats. He ends on a half-grimace. Neil isn’t sure whether it’s for Kevin or Neil. Or maybe the Foxes.

Wymack slams a glass onto the counter. Neil’s skin itches and burns. He manages to contain his immediate response to the noise and succeeds only in keeping his body still. Too still, probably, because Seth’s eyes narrow and his zoned-out stare locks onto Neil.

Neil is about to say something to deflect attention, but Wymack beats him to it. “It’s basically a guild meeting,” the man says shortly. “You all show up, any concerns are voiced…but mostly, it’s for the city guards to voice their distaste and pretend like it helps everyone get along.”

“Oh. A farce. Fantastic.”

“Says the elf that routinely wears a mask.” Andrew lazily leans over the rail of the staircase. His cool green-brown eyes slide over Neil like oil over water.

At least, that’s probably what Andrew wants Neil to think. Neil isn’t stupid. He’s spent his life attracting gazes; he knows how it looks to look, sneakily or no. Neil is very aware that Andrew is always looking.

_Why does he hate me?_

_Why does it matter?_ That voice is a little louder. Reminds Neil that it doesn’t matter. That Andrew caring or not doesn’t change anything. This is all about Neil saving the Foxes. Saving _something_ , before he dies and leaves nothing but a bloodstain on the ground.

Kevin sighs. He’s impatient. Well, he’s Kevin. “We all have to go. They’ll need a name. I—”

“You did not tell me about this.”

“It wasn’t a primary concern,” Kevin says testily.

Andrew seems amused. His chin is propped on his hand. Neil is tempted to throw something at his arm, just to watch Andrew fumble and tumble. He is instead pleased when Nicky bounds down the stairs, forcing Andrew to move out of the way and come to the bar.

Nicky plops onto the seat next to Neil. For some reason, he threads his fingers through Neil’s red-brown hair.

Neil freezes.

There is a rush of things—a flood of _don’t touch, bad touch, warning, death_ —and Neil can barely contain the roar of magic in his ears.

“Don’t do that.”

It’s not his voice. Not his words. This is Andrew. His command is distant, like it’s coming through heavy glass; Neil isn’t sure whether that is real or not. All he knows is that Andrew’s command is flat and even, like nothing is wrong and Neil isn’t falling inside of himself.

Neil manages to force his eyes onto Andrew. Some distant part of his mind is amused at the very sudden support. Another part recoils at the thought that Andrew noticed what happened.

“What—that’s not fair,” Nicky accuses, but he does pull his hand back. “Why are you allowed—”

“Enough.”

The argument might go on, but Neil can’t. He cannot stomach any more. He—

— _knows_ , to the bone, that Nicky is different. That he is sunshine and warmth and a hot cup of tea. That he is not going to hurt Neil, purposely or otherwise. That Nicky would throw himself in front of a train before hurting any of his friends.

Knowing doesn’t make any fucking difference.

“So? When is it?” Neil asks Kevin the question like he is not still trying to claw his way up out of a pit within his chest. Like the faintly hollow ring to his voice is not evidence of the pain.

Kevin doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice much. Neil finds, for once, he is grateful for that. “Tomorrow afternoon. Like Wymack said, the city guard hosts it. There’s no chance Riko or the Ravens will do anything.”

“Anything obvious,” Nicky corrects darkly.

Not comforting, but Neil already knew that. He already knows Riko.

Unlike Kevin, however, Neil does not answer to any master’s call. Never again.

“So, about…that.” Seth waves a finger vaguely at Neil. “What, uh…what’s going on with your magic? I’m not an expert, but I’ve never seen anything like it. You haven’t affected us in battle, either. Not like when Kevin forgets how to fucking place his spells right.”

Neil almost laughs. Almost. He can imagine Kevin setting down a spell, the glow of the circle on the ground, forgetting that someone else is within its radius. He can see Andrew just dodging the burning circle and setting his inflammatory glare on Kevin.

“I will never do that,” Neil says. He can’t say _I’ll never hurt you._ It’s a lie. A painful one. “That is not how it works.”

“How does it work?” Of course, Kevin elbows in. He can’t not.

Neil realizes he has an audience. It may only be Andrew, Nicky, and Wymack, but those are three more people than strictly necessary.

_You have to tell them, or they won’t trust you. How could they?_ The little voice in Neil’s head sounds distinctly pleased. Insidious. It wants to see him broken.

Sometimes, it sounds too much like Riko and the voice of another man. A much older one.

“It doesn’t work,” Neil replies. He can’t help the caustic remark. He does bite his tongue after, though, and tries again. “It’s…in me. It can’t get out and lash out at you.”

“But it can lash out at you,” Nicky says.

Neil can’t answer that. He can hardly process it. He has no clue how Nicky came to that conclusion, or how he’s…

… _right._

It has always lashed. It writhes inside of Neil on a good day and on a bad one, it carves him out from within and condenses his being into a little knot of pain and despair.

It feels, for lack of a better word, like possession.

That thing no one survives.

It’s just another way Neil should have died, by now. He should not be possible. Riko and the Executioner should have killed him when he was made, to spare everything that came after. _One of them certainly tried._ _I didn’t do much to help._

He should not think about that.

Neil slides off his chair easily and starts to walk to the back door. He is following the footsteps of another image of himself. A past Neil, whose steps were quick and wound through the shadows. A Neil that spent more time as a Wolf, hungry and endlessly running, looking for a shadow darker than the one that hunted him to lay his head down in.

It’s not until Neil is three blocks from the Foxhole that he realizes he has left.

Well, it might be a good idea to check out the guards’ square, anyway.

* * *

The meeting is packed. There are the usual guilds mulling around—including Jeremy’s merry band, which Kevin has been inching toward since the Foxes showed up.

Of course, there is also Riko.

The Ravens are aptly perched at a table near the door. They sit properly—not lounged the way most others are. They are all in their dark blue-black, faces shuttered and eyes dim. It is striking, how much they look like automatons. Moving versions of things that are supposed to be human.

Andrew slides Neil a sideways look. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

“I thought you said he’d behave at the meeting.”

“Something tells me you _would_ be the one to change that.”

Neil shrugs. It’s mostly lost in the diaphanous bulk of the scarf at his neck. The thing is a strange, purply color with silver-flecked threads running through it. Before they left the Foxhole, Nicky wound it around Neil’s neck. _For luck,_ he said, with his usual grin. Neil had buried his nose in the folds. Andrew had tried not to watch.

Clearly, he had failed.

There’s more than one curious gaze turned on the Foxes. Eyes linger on the new member of the team; questioning gazes rove the scars that peek out from Neil’s sleeves and scarf. Andrew thinks nothing of it at first, but he begins to catch the first signs of discomfort from Neil early on.

It’s interesting to watch a creature like Neil become uncomfortable. Well—uncomfortable is not quite the right name for it. Discomfort is something Andrew suspects Neil has told himself he doesn’t feel. _And we know all about those kind of lies, don’t we?_

Tell yourself something long enough…

“You don’t have to stay.” Seth hovers over Neil’s shoulder like a phantom. Sometimes, Andrew thinks that is exactly what Seth is. He should have died—might have. Maybe he is just another hallucination. A ghost that lingers, stuck on Neil the same way everyone else seems to be.

“He does,” Kevin interrupts. Who knows how he heard the exchange. “Those are—”

“If you say, ‘those are the rules’, I will shove my foot up your ass.”

Andrew ignores the exchange. He’s more interested in the imposter bird that is currently making his way toward the Foxes.

The Ravens weren’t that far to begin with. When the Foxes arrived, the available table was a few feet from the Ravens. Andrew recognizes this as a move on Riko’s part. It is more annoying than anything else. Andrew does not appreciate being reminded that he technically cannot just walk up and slit Riko’s throat.

Technically.

Riko is on them in a moment. While most of the Foxes did not notice his approach, Andrew is amused to see that Neil did. Neil leans forward a little, legs swinging as he sits on the edge of the table. His scars seem to hum. Andrew wonders if there is a frequency to them—some kind of magic that seems to draw in everything around Neil.

“I didn’t know they served food at these things,” Neil says, tilting his head. His eyes glitter and the only thing Andrew can think of to describe him is _cunning_. “So kind of them to serve us chicken.”

Nicky chokes on his drink. His shoulders shake as he presses his forehead to the table, desperately trying to regain the use of his lungs. Even Allison turns a wide-eyed gaze on Neil.

“Your childish insults mean nothing to me.” Riko smiles unpleasantly.

“I don’t care about you,” Neil says simply. “They are all for me. And anyone else that enjoys them. Which is everyone but you.”

Andrew has never seen someone dig their own grave so cheerfully, or with such precise expedience.

Kevin somehow manages to get his shit together enough to answer. That is not nearly so amusing to watch, now. Not compared to the way Neil is so brightly sparring with a man much more dangerous than him. “Riko. Why—”

“Leash him.” The command is silky but warning. Heavy. Riko has something very specific in mind and his tone communicates that. He only glances at Kevin; his gaze returns to rest heavily on Neil. “And do so soon, before we decide he is not worth keeping alive. You know the conditions of keeping pets.”

“Oh, I’m not interested.” Neil leans back until he is lying on the table, idly bouncing one foot as his right leg is crossed over the left. “Not in Kevin. Or anyone, really. Particularly not as a pet.”

“Neil—” Kevin valiantly tries to stop the elf, but Neil is not having it. He is on a roll. Like a ball of fire demolishing a city street, on its way to the sea.

“Though to be honest, it is predictable of you to enjoy something like that. I don’t imagine you could be any more uninspired, if you simply attempted to copy every job your brother has ever done.”

Now, he’s gone too far. Even Andrew knows where the line is. He isn’t particularly worried about retribution at the moment, though. He is more interested in the way that Riko turns. The way he has a shit-eating grin as he leans on the table, hands pressed to the surface. The way he leans close to Neil.

Alarms are ringing in Andrew’s head. Very loud, red, insistent alarms. He has a distant memory of Nicky touching Neil. All Andrew can see is how _close_ Riko is to Neil.

Somehow, Andrew finds he has moved forward. It doesn’t matter, in the end—Neil sits up and his blue eyes are the ice-cold sharpness they are when his magic rises.

Riko says something. Andrew cannot place the language. He registers this is a bad thing—a secret conversation between a monster and a silent elf—but Andrew has passing confidence that he could wrest the truth from Neil.

Well. Maybe less than a little confidence.

Whatever Riko says, Neil’s face doesn’t change. It is still that odd, disconnected mask he wears when there is danger. Neil replies with something short, his back still perfectly straight and his stare unwavering.

If Andrew knew what was happening, he might be impressed. As it stands, he is certainly amused.

Things would end there, but then Riko reaches out and the alarms blare even louder. When Riko’s hand gets to Neil’s chest, there is a blackout.

Nothing is as important as this. The touch.

Andrew does not register moving. All he knows is that he is suddenly right next to Riko, a dagger at his fingertips, the tip pressing into Riko’s ribcage. “You should know better than to touch what is not yours.”

Andrew can practically hear Kevin having a meltdown. He doesn’t look; his imagination will do just fine.

“Oh?” Riko smiles a little, patient and sick. His hand is still at Neil’s shirt. There is a little rise on one side—like Riko managed to get a finger into the laces or pull up the edge. “How funny. Do you think he is yours, then?”

There are many things happening at once. None of them are good. Andrew swallows around the bile in his throat but before he can answer, Neil speaks.

“I think you have done enough.” Neil leans back, his hands pressed to the table. Everything about his pose is open—the way his legs hang over the edge and the way his chest is a wide target. Something about the way he opens himself makes Andrew sick. “Unless you are so classless you would like to make a show of this?”

The challenge is clear. Riko is quiet for a long moment, his hand still hovering in the space Neil used to occupy. Eventually, he draws back, languid. Smiles. “I will be seeing you soon. You will not be so smug, the next time.”

Riko is already walking away when Neil murmurs, “I love a good challenge.”

It takes a moment for the Foxes to gather themselves. In that moment, Andrew replays the scene in his mind a dozen times. He can see Neil leaning back and Riko, every movement and gesture dominating.

Andrew knows what Riko’s possession looks like. He has seen it in Kevin—whose submission remains—and in the other Ravens.

This is different.

It is almost worse. The way Neil had offered himself up like someone well-versed in being used. Andrew finds an echo of himself in that and he hates it. He hates that he can see something familiar in the way Neil gives things he should not.

“We are done here.” Andrew moves away from the table. Kevin does not argue—no one does.

The Foxes leave in various states of shock and unease. It is just the same as any other day.

Yet somehow, worse.

* * *

_You are going to come with me, if you want them to live. If you want it to end._

Neil turns the coin around in his palm. It feels like so much dead weight.

His fingers find the familiar engraving. One side is a skull; a raven, its eye sockets wide and hollow. The other side is a crown.

He used to scratch away at the seal in the basement with a rock. Once, when he was bruised and couldn’t open his right eye, he used his nails. He pretended they did something. When he saw the seal again the day before he left, it looked just the same.

Someone knocks on the door. Neil tucks the coin away. He tries not to feel like it’s a cement block threatening to bury him in the ocean.

“Hey.” Seth tilts his head toward the staircase. “Training.”

It is not a question, but it is. Seth just has the same peculiar affliction that Kevin does, where his questions aren’t questions. They have widely different reasons for being so odd.

“Sure.”

Neil follows, mostly because he just needs something to preoccupy his mind. He has the itch of anticipation under his skin. It feels more like every step is bringing him closer to the end. To what he has been waiting for.

The backyard is empty. There’s a wooden staff propped up against the fence; Seth takes it and it fits in his hands with a familiarity that betrays how often he’s been in the space. Neil finds another staff and takes it, testing the weight in his hands.

Neil knows the drills inside and out. Could do them in reverse. He has seen the Foxes at work.

Seth gives Neil a questioning glance when Neil steps closer, but he doesn’t argue. He only cautiously paces in a well-work square of grass, waiting.

_No magic._ Not now. Not when Neil only has so much energy and so much concentration. He can’t let it overwhelm him. It rests under his skin, humming like a hornet. It will not dig unless he prods it.

Neil loses himself in the routine. In the mirrored movements and eventual clash of their staffs. He lets the world slide away as everything comes to the square—those few feet of space where the only thing that matters is not being hit.

 

He had a place to practice, in the basement. Sometimes, he would hide there during the day. Wait until the sweat made his shirt stick to his back. Hear his mother upstairs, maybe singing something. Smell the food she cooked. He would happily run through routines and feel the pleasant ache in his body.

Sometimes, he would be too happy. He would forget the time. He would keep moving until the door shut upstairs—that heavy wood, with its air of finality. He would look up, wide-eyed and fearful, scurrying to escape. To leave the basement before hell descended upon him.

Sometimes, he didn’t make it.

 

It’s Kevin’s voice that shouts, “Stop!”

There is only one answer. Only one bone-deep reaction. Neil’s knees hit the ground and he turns his face to the sky. He waits for the hand at his neck—

—the _don’t move, I will kill you, you should do better_ —

—but it never comes.

“What the fuck.” Seth hisses the words out. He is nearby; Neil doesn’t look. _Don’t look; don’t ever look, he hates that, it only makes it worse._

Kevin says something, but his voice is drowned out by Nicky, who is suddenly there. Suddenly louder. “Neil? Neil, I need to know if it’s safe to touch you. You’re…glowing.”

It doesn’t snap him back to reality. It does pull him closer to it, though. Pokes his cheek in the right direction. Neil blinks and looks down, slowly.

There it is. That damned magic that he didn’t want to bring up. It is scraping at his insides like broken fingernails. It is brighter than it has ever been around the Foxes—a haze of blue-white and pain.

It’s dark, Neil notices. _How long were we out here?_ He is lighting up the backyard. And, he notices, the other Foxes are watching from the porch.

“Wait.” It is all Neil can say. He has to think—has to concentrate on the magic. Has to pull it back, just as ragged as the way it feels. Like he is dragging someone who is clawing at the walls and floors. Neil is pulling his unwilling magic back into the place it stays. He cannot let it take over. Not anymore.

When the light dies down, Nicky edges closer. He is on his knees, cautious brown hands hovering in midair. “Can I touch you?”

_No. Never touch._

But Neil is so fucking tired. He is exhausted. He wants none of the whispers in his head or the ghosts in his periphery. He does not care for the past they insist upon. _This is mine, now,_ he answers. He growls. _Mine._

“Yes.”

It is probably not smart to say yes, but he does. He says it and then Nicky pulls him in, careful arms and warmth. It—

—does not feel bad. Very not bad.

Somehow, Neil unwinds. Not entirely, but a little. Enough. It is more than he can do, alone. He can smell the spice on Nicky’s skin and the way his hair is freshly washed from a bath. Even Nicky’s shirt feels soft. He is all comfort in a way Neil does not know. Barely understands.

_Was this what it was always supposed to feel like?_

Pressing arms. Protection. Desperate, sharp movements. _I am keeping you safe._

But safe never felt like this and Neil thinks he likes _this_ much better.

“It’s okay,” Nicky says quietly. Neil doesn’t think anyone else can hear; his voice is almost a whisper. “It might not be now. Maybe it never was. But it will be. And at least right now, it is.”

It’s one of those things, Neil thinks. Like how your body just knows how to breathe. Neil hugs Nicky back slowly, still not sure why—but he knows how. He knows how to bring his arms around Nicky and he knows how to close his eyes for a minute, his face pressed into Nicky’s shoulder.

Maybe it is only that moment, but it is okay—and that matters.

* * *

“Come.”

Neil raises an eyebrow. For a blinding moment, Andrew thinks Neil will say something. He prepares himself for it. Is violently opposed to what he imagines will come from the elf’s lips.

Thankfully, the reply is not as bad as it could be. “I am not a dog.”

“Then be a cat and _come._ ” Andrew turns away from Neil’s door and makes his way downstairs. He expects that the order to change clothes is obvious. After all, Andrew does not typically wear silver charms that hang around his neck.

Neil comes downstairs after five minutes. He never puts much care into the outfit he wears to Eden’s. Unfortunately, it only serves to make his appearance even more haphazardly attractive. Neil’s red-brown hair is a mess from lying on his bed; his shirt is crooked and two of the top buttons are already coming undone.

Andrew pointedly glares in the opposite direction.

Eden’s is just as bright and loud as always. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem to carry the same weight it usually does. Andrew’s mouth is stubbornly shut, no matter how many drinks he tips into his mouth. He keeps an unnecessary eye on Kevin. He _itches_.

“It’s late.”

“Your powers of observation are godlike.” Andrew grabs another drink. His hand grips it too tight.

Neil rests his chin on his palm. His cheeks are vaguely flushed. It’s warm. “We usually head back.”

_Usually. We._ Andrew wants to ignore the words. He wants to ignore words. He wants them to not matter. He wants—

—that’s more than enough.

“Upstairs.” Andrew pushes his chair back and gets up. Signals to Roland, who catches his eye.

To his credit, Neil doesn’t make any snide remarks, but Andrew expects that. Silence is _Neil_. Those barbs—they are not Neil. They are the other one. The wolf in the shadows.

There is a door at the far-left end of the hall. It is placed further from the door next to it than the rest. Andrew fishes the key out from under his shirt, tugging on the chain. When he opens it, there is a wide space and another door. A private room and a bigger one with more beds.

“This is ours.”

“The Foxes?”

_Words should not matter. They should not matter—_

“Yes,” Andrew admits grudgingly. He taps his fingers against his leg. He should not be agitated. He has brought Kevin and Nicky in, countless times. Andrew, too. “It is ours to use, any time of day.”

Neil nods. He is quiet as he evaluates—exits, furniture, hiding spots. Andrew wants to slap his cheek and tell him to pay attention, but he also does not want to do that at all.

They’ve already come to this point. Andrew pulls another key out from his pocket; it is fresh and shining. He holds it out without looking directly—but he still looks from the side of his eye at Neil.

Neil stares like he has never seen a damn key in his life. For a moment, Andrew has the dreadful notion that it might be true.

“Why…”

“Because the door should always be locked,” Andrew says testily. _Words should not matter; this should not be important._

_But it is._

Neil looks at the key like it might grow wings and fly away. “But—”

“It is just a key,” Andrew manages to say. The words grind out from between his teeth like chewed bones.

“You know it’s not.”

He does. That is why this is difficult. Why Andrew wants desperately to be anywhere else, but why he also wants to be _right there_ , watching every minute reaction in Neil’s face. In his body.

“Take it,” Andrew says shortly. He manages to make it sound just a little less angry.

Neil takes the key. Andrew watches Neil trace it with his finger, as if this is something he does and will always do. Wonders if Neil could make a copy by memory within a day.

Andrew thinks of plenty of things, but he does not give any of them voice. He simply stands there, the sounds of the club below magically muffled, and breathes.

It is done, and it might not have been as terrible as he thought it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here come the feeeeeeliiiiings  
> I hope you enjoy this! I have been waiting to get to the Big Thing and I hope this leads up well. As always, Wolf Neil is my favorite Neil when it comes to being snarky. Also, Andrew has increasingly less chill when it comes to Neil. Anyway!  
> Read, review, comment if you have time...and most importantly, please enjoy!


	7. Substrate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil does not tell anyone. He does not even tell himself. He moves on instinct and need.  
> Meanwhile, Andrew tries not to think about the Foxes' newest addition. It's more difficult than he anticipated to forget the elf, especially when Andrew has suspicions.

There is a bird outside the window that will not shut the fuck up.

Neil rolls over in bed and stares at the obscured square. He contemplates the fabric. Thinks about how it’s probably flammable.

He has never had the luxury of sleeping like this, before. He never even dreamed of it.

_You’re stalling._

The house is quiet. No one is moving around yet; the vague light coming through the cracks in the curtain suggest that it’s not yet dawn. Not early enough for even Kevin to be awake.

Neil rolls off his bed— _his_ bed—and slides into his shoes. He doesn’t have much. Just the clothes he wore when he came to the Foxes and the outfit Nicky gave him.

He feels a little reluctant, leaving the black outfit behind. It might not have been something he’d ever choose, but it was comfortable. Light.

Nicky gave it to him.

The only thing Neil really needs is the coin. It’s in his pocket, where it’s been since it was given to him. Since Riko leaned in and made a threat. A promise.

_You are going to come with me, if you want them to live. If you want it to end._

Neil slips out of his room. He had a plan that involved his window, but—

—but he can’t. He can’t just entirely leave. He has…some sort of compulsion. A whisper in his ear, telling him to lie, at least.

Seth is sitting at the empty fireplace. Neil realizes he knew Seth would be there, somehow. Subconsciously. Neil is almost amused. _Was I looking for him?_ _Why?_

He knows why.

“You’re up early.” Seth doesn’t turn away from the fireplace. He sits on the ground, one leg bent, his arm slung carelessly over it.

“You never went to sleep.”

“You don’t either, sometimes.”

“I did last night.” It’s half-true. Neil curls his hand around the coin in his pocket. Feels its cold metal bite his palm. He spent hours tracing the sides while he lay in bed.

Seth finally turns. There’s something weary about his expression that Neil feels in his bones, but—

— _but_.

That is the important thing. That Seth looks tired, but he seems at peace. Somehow. He isn’t struggling to keep himself up. Not the way he did, before.

He’s not really a ghost anymore. Seth is real—his edges may be rough, but they’re hard and they’re _real._ He exists. He knows he exists.

It is enough, even if it can never be enough.

“I don’t think there’s a job, today. Not yet.”

“So, I’m not needed.”

Seth pins him. Looks straight at Neil and says, without stumbling, “You are. Always.”

This should not hurt so much.

Neil nods. Swallows, because the first thing that comes to his tongue is an apology. A eulogy.

He hesitates. “If—”

“If they need you, I’ll go,” Seth finishes, as if that is what Neil was going to say. As if he knows, somehow, that Neil cannot entirely let go. “Don’t worry about them.”

_Painful._ This is one of those hurts you cannot touch.

“I have to go.” If he stays, Neil is sure he will not go.

“Be safe.”

Neil can’t answer that. He doesn’t know how to, and something tells him if he tried, he would just end up failing anyway. He is tired of failure. Tired of trying and falling.

Neil is tired of a lot of things. He never expected to not be tired of the Foxes. To want more.

Just one more day. A little more time. Just one more dinner made with Dan, or one more training session in the backyard. Anything.

He’d even take Andrew staring at him in Eden’s Twilight.

_I have to go._

He does not make the decision to go, like everything else. He goes because he has to. His feet take him out the front door and he walks through the city, toward the darkest alley and the deepest grave he could find.

But it’s all right. For once, he is going to make a difference.

* * *

_Where is he?_

Andrew should not care. Well—not as much as he does. He cares only as far as the fact that he wants to go out, and he wants to question Neil some more. Lately, it feels like some things have had some give. When he pushes, he can feel parts of Neil’s mask slide away under his fingertips.

“He’s out,” Seth says from the bar. Andrew studiously ignores him. Seth doesn’t care. “If you have a job, I’ll go.”

“We have a job?” Kevin frowns and looks over at Andrew. He is an idiot. Andrew almost ignores him, too. Except that would just seems suspicious.

“No. Come.”

Kevin doesn’t argue. He has long since given up on Andrew’s methods and motivations. They leave the Foxhole and Andrew is silently pleased that Seth doesn’t seem to move from his seat. An argument is the last thing he wants to deal with; he’s had a headache since he woke up. Neil was supposed to be a compelling distraction.

“You need a dose.” Kevin, again. Unsolicited, as usual.

Andrew waves him away. “I am—” _Fine. That’s what Neil would say._ Andrew’s jaw clenches. “Not interested.”

“You know what will happen. Wymack will notice and he won’t appreciate it. We don’t need trouble now, of all times.”

It says something that Andrew only has the slightest inclination to grab Kevin by the neck and toss him into the nearby ocean.

He’s right. Kevin is right, of course, and that is as unusual as it is annoying. _A dose_. Andrew looks at his fingers. They are pale; nearly colorless. The vials in the pouch hanging from the pouch on his belt clink softly. They are waiting to be filled. Waiting for blood—for energy he does not have.

Andrew holds his hand out.

Kevin sighs shortly, but there is no trace of annoyance or discomfort. Just the usual—just Kevin sighing because he is dramatic. Also, because he is nervous. He is covering up the unease he feels about this entire thing. About his role in it.

Andrew can feel the hum before it hits his skin. The crackle of magic. Kevin mutters something and his hand curls around Andrew’s arm. He never closes his hand completely—never does anything to add weight to what is already a weighty move. He just lingers; touches enough to transfer.

The magic feels like any foreign magic does. It crowds through Andrew and aggravatedly, like it can tell his body is not Kevin. Like it doesn’t approve of its new vessel. The magic warms him, but only in temperature. Besides that, it mostly feels like Kevin.

Annoyed.

“Well? Are we done? Or do I need to show and tell, too?” Andrew moves the muscles in his face that usually constitute a smile, but he is certain that it doesn’t look like one.

Kevin sighs again, this time definitely annoyed. He starts to walk. “Where are we even going?”

“Where else? To find a job.” Andrew’s walk is more of a pace, now. The energy feels like it overfills his veins.

No matter how many times they have tried, nothing works. Kevin can never give the right amount. It always feels like too much.

Something glimmers. Andrew sees it from the corner of his eye and he turns sharply—it’s a blue, bright and clear, that he knows.

Except when Andrew turns, he does not see Neil. He sees a shining teardrop of colored glass hanging from a windchime. The stall it belongs to has others, all blinking in the morning light. None of them are quite as blue.

_Enough._ Andrew forces his attention to the rest of the market. Now that they have arrived, Kevin can take over. He has a method. Andrew just follows, drifting while his body hums at him, loud to his ears. He cannot concentrate on much, other than the whine in his head.

“—isn’t how we usually do it,” Kevin says, his words swimming into Andrew’s ears. Kevin is speaking to a man, agitated and clearly fidgety.

The man runs a hand through his tangled hair. “Please. I can pay more, when—”

“Just—show me,” Kevin interrupts, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Andrew follows them as they wind through side alleys. He can hear distant music. The spices of the market are heavy in the air. The cinnamon reminds him of Neil and Andrew pinches his arm, pretending it’s just because he needs to see if his body is still as pale.

_Liar._ _Lies._

He might be distracted, but Andrew still knows three steps into the journey that this is a mistake.

They aren’t far into an alley when their potential client turns on Kevin. It happens quickly—first, there’s a swift movement and the scuff of boots against stone. Then, Kevin’s cloak flutters as he pivots, cursing under his breath as he tries to put distance between himself and the man. There’s not enough room.

The clang of metal breaks the scuffle. Andrew watches Seth appear from the rooftops above them, striking at the stranger with silent determination. He knocks the man out easily, but that isn’t the end. There are more coming.

“What the hell,” Kevin hisses. He is already weaving a spell, greenish energy glowing like flame at his feet. It travels like lighting across the stone-paved alley.

Seth rotates his arm, pressing into his shoulder with the opposite hand as he uses his toe to bring his maul upright again. “Not quite. They don’t have Riko with them.”

Kevin tenses. _He just now realized,_ Andrew thinks. He is not sure whether he should be more angry or amused.

More men flood the alley, but the close quarters don’t do much for them. Kevin’s spells flicker to life like flame at the mouth of the alley and his targets are easily distracted. Seth knocks out two or three men at a time, casually swinging as if he it takes no more energy than combing his hair.

Andrew dips empty vials to the men that hit the ground a little too hard. He takes the drops they give and swirls the blood while he watches the fight unfold. He pours the blood over his dagger, waiting for it to hum when it comes into contact.

Kevin makes room for Andrew; he knows what is coming. Andrew doesn’t even have to duck under Kevin’s arm; he slides past and brings his knife up to a man’s neck. Throws one assailant back and pins another to the wall behind him, pressing the blade of his knife to the fragile skin beneath it.

“Stop—stop,” the man says, panicked.

Andrew hums in interest. “Oh? You’re scared, now?”

“Let me go,” the man insists. He is trying to seem vicious. Andrew is not convinced.

“You’ll have to try harder.”

“If you don’t let me go, Lor—”

“Say _Lord_ ,” Andrew says lowly. He presses the knife closer. Watches a bead of blood appear. It is almost funny, how the man squirms and pales. “Go on. Say it. I don’t particularly enjoy that word, you know.”

The man presses his lips together. Keeps his mouth shut.

Andrew smiles. “Ah. He learns. Good—now, why don’t you tell me what you meant to do, here?”

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” Kevin says, disgruntled. He is approaching from where there are bodies piled at the alleyway’s entrance, stepping over limbs.

Andrew does not look back. “I did not ask you,” he says, singsong voice rising. “So. Should I ask again? I do not like asking twice.”

The man grits his teeth. Weighty decisions flash in his eyes. “We just had to scare you. Maybe hurt you.”

“Why?”

The man laughs. He shakes his head once. There is something in his eyes—some knowledge—

—Andrew knocks him out, one swift blow to the side of the head.

“We’re leaving. Now.”

“What? Why?” Kevin tenses—he is already tense; it makes him look an inch shorter.

Andrew cleans his knife on the man’s shirt and tucks it away. “Someone’s in trouble.”

* * *

Neil distantly wonders what the Foxes are doing.

_Crack._

He wonders if Nicky is helping Dan make dinner. If he’s frowning and glancing at the door. Neil wonders if Matt is coming in from a job, tired but smiling, ducking to kiss Dan.

_Crack._

Maybe Renee is helping Wymack behind the bar. Aaron is probably facing off with Seth as they set up the dinner table.

_Crack._

Kevin would come in, agitated as always, like a dust devil. Allison would bother him. They would go back and forth, with Allison tossing her golden hair and Kevin frowning like he forgot what it was like to smile. He would comb a hand through his dark hair, like it was ever in place. Like he could make it stay in place.

_Crack._

Andrew. He would be watching Neil. Maybe he would never have left the Foxhole. Maybe he would have followed Neil around all day. They might have talked about something—Andrew may have pushed, tentatively, and Neil would have danced around the answers.

He might not have hated it.

_Crack._

Neil prefers to wonder about the Foxes.

He prefers them over this—over the whip hitting his back and the fire lancing across his skin. Over the shadows of the Nest and the lingering sense of suffocation, like there are feathers everywhere. In his throat. In the air.

“Did you think you were free?” Riko hisses. He kicks Neil over. Turns him on his back, the pain multiplying across every inch of skin that hits the cold floor. It is marble. Beautiful to look at, but never consoling. Hard.

Neil breathes. In, out. There is a retort forming on his tongue. He would not have spoken it before, but now, it comes unbidden. It bubbles up his throat and all he can imagine is Nicky laughing or Andrew leaning closer, clever eyes evaluating.

“Do you think this means you owe me?”

_Crack._

Easy. So easy to bait Riko.

Neil should not be speaking. He should not be encouraging this. He should be holding himself together, quiet, waiting for the end of it all. Waiting for the few weeks to pass.

Riko can’t keep him. Not this time.

Neil went to the meeting. He was there; his name—thought it’s not _his_ name—is on the guild list. Neil exists to the Foxes. He has carved out a stolen spot for himself. If Riko keeps Neil, he risks too much.

Not that Riko couldn’t just kill Neil. He could. He could do whatever he wanted. But Riko is not the one in control of the Ravens, as much as he wants to be. That distinction belongs to his uncle.

“You think you can hide behind them? They are weak. You are nothing.”

_Nothing._ That’s true. It is true, so it can’t hurt Neil. “Do you always monologue like this? Or am I just unlucky?”

_Crack._

Well, that was expected.

Things go on this way. They blur. Neil only breathes enough to keep himself awake; anything else would hurt more than he already does.

He breathes, and he waits. Allows the magic to invade him because it is worse when he tries to stop it.

Riko claws his way through Neil’s veins. He permeates everything; he is the acid and cotton of death, filling Neil’s mouth like the stuffing shoved into a cadaver. Riko is nothing but dry decay and Neil feels it permeate his skull from the inside out.

He feels curiously less than nothing, once it slows. It does not exactly stop, but it comes to some kind of end. Riko crouches, lazy hands on his knees, saying something else unnecessary.

Neil recognizes the hands on his arms. The warm, wide palms. The faint scent of vanilla.

“You must stand,” Jean says quietly.

Neil wants to tell him _fight_. He wants to say there is no escape from Riko. No way out. Only a way up—a way so high from him that he has to jump, when he tries to reach you.

When he jumps, he is vulnerable.

Instead of saying anything, Neil curls his hand around Jean’s. Forces himself up and forward in a familiar march.

This is only the first day.

* * *

“Where is he?” Nicky’s leg bounces under the table. He is practically vibrating with pent-up energy.

Andrew does not say anything. Most of his energy is focused on not saying anything.

Kevin does not have the same issue. “He’s probably doing some digging on the job he wanted to hire us for. He hasn’t been able to, yet.”

“But, why didn’t he take one of us with him? Or say anything?”

“He doesn’t want you to worry. Like you are now,” Seth says shortly. He is staring at his plate with a little more fury than strictly necessary.

This is only one of the many things Andrew has noticed that make his skin itch and his bones creak.

Andrew has suspected, since the attack in the alley, that Neil is in trouble. He is still uncertain as to why or how, but he is sure that the elf is probably somewhere getting himself in over his head.

The problem is that Andrew can’t find him.

The Foxes were fine, when Seth and Kevin followed Andrew home. Everyone was fine and at first, it seemed like a mistake. But Andrew noticed the elf was gone and the hum of dissonance in his veins only mounted with each passing minute that Neil did not show up.

“What is it you’re supposed to do, anyway?” Wymack taps his finger on the rim of his heavy mug. He hasn’t said much about Neil since his arrival, but Wymack takes all the strays in stride. Mostly.

Kevin taps his fork on his plate. “He’s looking for the person that—his—”

“Master,” Andrew submits. _Strange._ Strange that Kevin would hold back.

“He’s looking for that person. They’ve been chasing him down, but they always send other people. He wants to find this person and end it.”

“End it,” Wymack echoes. He doesn’t say anything about the wording, but his insinuation hangs in the air.

Seth’s shoulder hunch as he props his elbows on the table. He does not look up when he says, “I don’t think they would stop with anything less, would you? Not after what’s happened so far. You’ve seen the scars.”

The table is silent. Andrew feels the itch under his skin mount. _Danger, danger._

Wait.

Something is sliding into place. A thought. Something he does not want to think about, but—

—but he is thinking about it.

The way he went so long without a dose. The way Andrew did not feel threatened by the bleed of magic from Neil. The interesting hum that always surrounded the elf, like a subliminal vibration. A broadcast. Not quite positivity, but not negativity, either.

Andrew’s head swirls like a drain. _Did I take, or did he give?_

“He might be in trouble,” Nicky says suddenly. Upset. “We should be looking for him, or at least—”

“He survived before us,” Kevin dismisses. “He’ll be fine.”

“Surviving isn’t living,” Allison says flatly. It is the first thing Andrew has heard her say about Neil.

_All this mess for one elf._ Andrew would laugh if it were funny. He just feels sapped—drained of all energy and thought. Blank. Colorless. The magic Kevin gave him is still in his body and Andrew is still waiting. He hates the waiting. He knows it too well. Knows that something is going to come, and he cannot do a thing to stop it.

Aaron leaves the table. Andrew watches his retreat and thinks back to Eden’s Twilight. To Aaron scrutinizing Neil.

_I could not just let that go._

He could have.

_I did not like the way he looked at Neil._

He imagined the discomfort.

_I did not trust him._

He did not trust himself.

* * *

When he was a child, Nathaniel was not scarred.

He was warm-gold from the sun. His hair was a tangled mess. His eyes were still the same blue, bright and wide. His body was small and quick. He ran through his house with silent feet, practicing avoidance like most children would be practicing games or sports.

Other, normal children.

One evening, Nathaniel was in the basement. He was not supposed to be there. The packed earth floor smelled strange and the table in the corner sat under an unlit lamp. Nathaniel did not need it to see. He walked the edge of the basement, counting his footsteps as he went.

He heard the door close above him.

Nathaniel panicked. He had no idea what to do. He was a child.

There was a cabinet in the corner. Nathaniel opened it and crawled in. He huddled in a corner, the fabric of old cloaks dusty with age muffling his world. Nathaniel peered out from a crack in the doors and held his breath, fingers trembling against the wood.

The Executioner came in. The man seemed like a wall—like a levy, though what tide he kept back Nathaniel never wanted to know.

This was Nathaniel’s father. Nathan.

There was another man with Nathan. A silent man whose mouth was bright red. Whose hands were red. The red man was stumbling, like the drunk men that crossed the street at night. The ones Nathaniel watched from his bedroom window.

“You have failed,” Nathan said. He was at the desk. One of his hands set something down on the desk—a cleaver. It was stained with rust-brown-red. Nathaniel’s breath stopped in his throat.

The red man made a noise. It sounded like drowning. “I have—give me a cha—”

“Give?” Nathan turned. The cleaver was in his hand again. His eyes were ice—were blue but empty, flat like the eyes of a shark. Some predator. A creature. “I do not give anything but death.”

The red man tried to speak again. Nathan did not listen. He only lifted his hand and then his arm swung, the sick sound of metal-meat-bone echoing in the room. The blood flew. None of it hit Nathan.

It hit Nathaniel. It came through the crack, little droplets, warm on a tiny cheek. Nathaniel started to recognize the smell on the cloaks around him. It was so heavy, now.

“You didn’t put canvas down.”

It was his mother’s voice. Mary was enough to bring Nathaniel back to himself, just a little. Enough to wake him from within.

Nathan pulled his cleaver out. Ran a finger along the edge, testing. “I overestimated his intelligence.”

“This will not clean easy,” Mary warned.

_Why did she not sound scared? Worried?_ Nathaniel wondered and despaired; he held himself close in the cabinet, his breath coming in straw-sips.

“I have business.” Nathan abandoned the cleaver and stepped over the pooling blood. “See to it.”

He left. The Executioner was gone, and Nathaniel stayed there. He could not—did not know how to come out. Did not understand. His mother was there, and she was not screaming; was not leaving.

She was not looking for him.

Mary left the basement. It took Nathaniel a long time to surface. When he did, it was with gasping breath and a constricted chest. His eyes stung with tears and his body was sore from tension.

Nathaniel climbed out of the cabinet. The first thing his foot landed in was blood.

* * *

He woke on a bench.

_Didn’t someone famous die this way?_

He wasn’t dead. He was not close enough. Riko had ensured that.

Neil’s mouth felt like cotton. He wanted to curl in on himself. Wanted to avoid the world. Escape the radiating pain. He wanted to go—

—go to the Foxhole.

It was too painful to even think what he wanted.

There was no one to help him. Neil rose because he had to. Because he could not die there. He struggled to his feet and began to walk, one step and another, nowhere in particular.

Neil traced the shape of a key into his palm as he walked. He could feel it. If he closed his eyes, he could see it on the bed at the Foxhole.

It was hard to tell where he was, but Neil followed the shore. He walked past the docks and his body took him along familiar streets. Routine and knowledge guided him, even as the rest of him threatened to fall apart. Distantly, Neil wondered what would happen, if he ran into the Foxes.

The only place he could go was back. He didn’t want—

—he didn’t want to hurt them.

“Neil?” Wymack. Neil wanted to close his eyes. Avoid the look he would find on the man’s face.

He kept his eyes open. Looked to his right to see Wymack at the side door to the Foxhole. Neil had arrived, somehow.

Wymack’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “Through the back. Quickly, before they get back.”

Neil blindly followed. He took one step after another and followed Wymack to a room at the back of the Foxhole. It was so hidden Neil wouldn’t have known it was there, if he hadn’t silently scoured every inch of the Foxhole, his first night there.

Abby is in the corner, her back to them as she examines the contents of a cabinet. There is a smile on her face when she turns to Wymack, words on her lips, but it all falls when she sees Neil.

“Oh, my God—”

“He has to stay here. Hidden—just for a little while,” Wymack says firmly.

Abby looks alarmed. “He needs help; he can’t—”

“Get him stable. After that, we’ll figure things out.”

“He needs help,” Abby repeats, a trickle of anger creeping into her voice. She is incredulous, probably.

Neil can only say so much. He is dizzy and heavy; his mouth is cotton and his head pounds. “It will get better. You just—”

Even this is too much. His vision swims. Wymack curses and steers Neil toward the bed on the other wall, far from the door and hidden by a curtain. Neil barely registers his body being turned onto the mattress. He hears Abby’s whispered fury and Wymack’s stern replies.

Neil drifts. He feels Abby cleaning his forehead later—feels bandages at his hands and face—and then, nothing.

Just the emptiness of sleep and for once, no dreams or nightmares to crowd his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! This update comes early because tomorrow, I will be flying home to visit family. I'll be out for a few days, but I'll be back in time to (hopefully) update as usual. I hope you enjoy this chapter, as much as it lacked the usual banter and family dynamics...but, we had to get here somehow. It was all leading to this.  
> On the bright side, we are about to get some very interesting Neil and Andrew interaction...


	8. Dilate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil has a few more scars. Unfortunately, he is not so adept at trying to prevent further injuries.  
> Maybe this is why Andrew decides to begin their exchange. Perhaps he recognizes that Neil is dying. After all, it takes one to know one.

“Before you go in, you—”

Andrew ignores Wymack and makes a beeline for the back of the Foxhole. He distantly hears the man’s frustrated noises and does not care.

Kevin is close on his heels. Andrew ignores him, too. His eyes are trained on the door at the back of the building, with its heavy wood and silence.

When he opens the door, Andrew sees the figure on the bed. Neil is not in it, of course—he would never submit to simply lying there—and there is a distinct lack of sickness in the room. Instead, there are terrific bruises and cuts peeking out from under heavy bandages. Neil tilts his head, bright-blue eyes narrowed just a little at the intrusion, and Andrew sees a little cut that curves under Neil’s bottom lip.

Neil is silent. Challenging, almost.

Well. Neil is always challenging. That is the thing that Andrew hates.

Kevin opens his mouth. He takes a halting step forward. “What…”

“Stupid question,” Andrew murmurs lazily.

Neil gives Andrew a long, cool look before his gaze turns to Kevin. “He knew he couldn’t go far.”

“This isn’t far?” Nicky’s choked voice comes from the doorway, behind Andrew. Neil’s eyes widen a fraction. Andrew assumes all the others are in the doorway, too.

How stupid.

All of this is stupid. Andrew is particularly irked by the way Kevin looks crushed. Like he didn’t think the Ravens and Riko would do something. Like Seth wasn’t already almost killed. None of this is new. Neil being hurt is not surprising.

So, why? _Why does it matter?_

The frustration and anger itches under his skin. Andrew blames hate and Neil. He does not think that he does it because it is easy, but that is also a _lie_ and it is sour in his throat.

“What a novel decision,” Andrew says, leaning back against the door frame. “What on earth could have possessed you to go?”

It is mocking, mostly. It is also aggravated. _I am turning into Kevin._

Andrew cannot figure it out. Cannot figure Neil out. There are ends that don’t meet. He cannot follow the threads of Neil’s choices. Any of them.

Coming to the Foxes. Helping Seth. Helping Kevin. Going when Riko called.

Coming back.

Neil slides a shoe onto his foot. He pretends it does not hurt, but Andrew knows it must. Even if Neil’s face never changes. “Preventative measure.”

“Doesn’t look like you prevented anything.”

“Looking with your eyes. How very boring.”

“Lying through your teeth. How very boring.”

“All right,” Wymack interrupts, exasperated. “Why don’t we focus on more pressing matters, instead. Like the job you picked up while Neil was gone. It’s a big thing, and you’re going to need help. You need to work together.”

Andrew would laugh. As it is, he just stares evenly at Wymack. Kevin finally manages to get himself together enough to comb a hand through his hair, shutting his eyes for a moment like that will help things end. Like he could make it all stop, so long as he didn’t see.

He doesn’t see anyway, so Andrew doesn’t know what the point is.

“Fine.” Kevin moves toward the door. Away from the bed and Neil, whose bandages cover more of his skin than is uncovered. “We’ll talk. After I finish this job.”

That’s interesting. Kevin leaves and Andrew watches him go. Kevin does not rush in like he normally would. He does not put the job before Neil and the bandages. Maybe it is because Kevin was on his way out to a job, before Wymack tried to tell them. Maybe it’s something else.

Kevin leaves and Andrew thinks, as Neil ties his shoelaces, that too many things are not adding up.

* * *

He does not have a way into the room.

Well, he could ask the bartender, but Neil does not want to do that. The less interaction he has with other people, the better.

Neil goes to the roof. He climbs a back ladder and steps carefully, feet steady.

He only means to stay for a little while. By the time he hears the door creaking behind him, the sky is purple-orange. Eden’s Twilight is already humming beneath him, like a cloud of bees preparing to take flight.

Andrew’s pale head emerges from the door. He seems displeased—but then, that is usual. The same way Kevin is mostly aggravated. Andrew walks over to Neil without looking down once. _He’s been here, before._ Neil is not sure whether it’s the roof or something else.

Andrew takes a minute to imperiously loom over Neil. Neil supposes it is because this is the only time Andrew is taller than him. Or tall.

Finally, Andrew sits. He keeps his distance, but his gaze is heavy on Neil.

Neil wonders how long he can drag things out.

The thin line of Andrew’s mouth says he’s not getting away with it that easily. “What was the point of that?”

“There has to be a point?”

Andrew turns a little more to look at Neil. He has the same eyes as always, but—

—but, Neil thinks there’s more brown. Maybe it changed.

“Truth,” Andrew says shortly. He might be seething. Neil isn’t sure.

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to know.

It is hard, with Andrew. Neil almost wishes it weren’t so difficult, if only so he could have a moment. A breath.

“Truth, then,” Neil agrees. “I left because something bad would have happened if I said no.”

“What?”

Neil shrugs. “Something. Does it matter?”

Andrew’s eyes narrow. He might calculate the question-answers then and decides he can go longer. Push further. Even if he is pushing himself, too.

“Did anything happen?” Neil watches Andrew’s face. He trusts the truth from Andrew—a promise kept—but he knows what game they’re playing. Misdirection. “While I was gone.”

“Nothing new. Who did he threaten?”

“Everyone.”

It’s the truth. And a lie.

_You are going to come with me, if you want them to live._ All of them.

_If you want it to end._ Just one.

If he closes his eyes, Neil can see the basement. He can hear the screams. He can feel the papers under his hands, with all the names and orders.

He can smell the man, with his thick sweat and military leather.

Neil contemplates his shoes. They are good. Not his, really. They were given to him by the Foxes. He thinks he has a list, now; tally marks in columns that remind him of all he has to pay back. All he has to do, before he dies.

Andrew is smoking. Neil does not know when it happened, but it is. Andrew’s pale hand lingers near his lips and Neil breathes in slowly.

They would burn, for the worst crimes. The Executioner always felt cheated of those deaths.

“Why is it your magic is hard?” _Like mine,_ Neil doesn’t say.

Andrew clams up. It is not entirely physical; mostly, it’s the flick of his wrist and the way smoke coils around his neck. The half-lowering of his eyelids and the haze in his hazel. Andrew shuts down and Neil hoards the moment—the flickering and resistance. It is the closest thing to a reaction he has seen, yet.

The conversation is done. Or at least, Neil thinks it is. Until Andrew draws himself upright and fishes something out of his pocket.

The keys blink in the light. The silver and copper shapes are a little dull, but Neil doesn’t care.

“Did you think they would not be found?”

Neil stares. He could trace them onto his palm with his eyes closed. “I knew they would be.”

Andrew’s hand curls tighter around the keys. Neil imagines the way the teeth bite into his palm—the little divots between first and second, the curving slope after that. The grooves.

They are more alike in some ways than Neil recognized. Andrew—impulsively, probably—flicks his wrist and throws the keys.

They sail toward the harbor.

Neil could not say why he does what he does. He is not able to explain it. All he knows is that he sees the keys flying through the air, shining and heavy. Neil watches them and imagines the water—

—water, swallowing her up, ash and bone and the grave-dirt in his mouth—

—and Neil cannot let that happen. He cannot let the water take them.

Neil does not register the magic coming. He only moves, turning on his heel and jumping from the roof without a second thought. The coil of blue-white curls around his limbs. Builds like a spring and forces him forward, with more momentum than his body could ever produce. Neil reaches the keys, hand outstretched, and closes his fingers around the gift.

The landing is messier. Maybe because he starts to realize. Neil tumbles, just a hair shy of falling into the ocean. He skids and feels his palm sting with the impact. His shoulder is sore.

He doesn’t care.

_It wasn’t the same._

None of it was the same. The magic didn’t eat through him. It didn’t force its way out. It didn’t do anything. It just _came,_ and he captured the keys as if it were no more difficult than breathing.

Neil looks up. He sees Andrew at the edge of the roof, watching. For a breathless moment, it is only them—only the way their eyes meet. Neil’s hand curls tighter and the metal bites, just like it must have done with Andrew. Maybe both their blood is on the metal now. Enchantment.

There’s something in Andrew’s eyes. Something Neil wants to know. Andrew’s pushing must be infectious. Neil wants to push, suddenly—to know if Andrew knows what has happened. What any of it means.

Instead, he waits. Lets his fist uncurl and lets the keys jingle softly as they hang from his fingers.

Andrew’s gaze flickers. He draws back, just a little, and turns. He steps away and Neil watches him go, leaving out the same door he came through.

It occurs to Neil that Kevin is probably waiting for him. _Too bad,_ he thinks. _He can wait a little longer._

* * *

“It’s for a wealthy merchant family,” Kevin explains. His tone clearly betrays his annoyance at Neil’s lateness. “Nicky’s family.”

Interesting. Neil glances at Nicky. He doesn’t look happy. He is biting his lip and curling his hands over the edges of his sleeves.

Unusual. For Nicky.

Seth leans against the wall. “They specifically asked for us. Kevin and the twins. You and I will go because we do not trust this to end simply. Not with what we have seen lately.”

“What have you seen, lately?” Neil pointedly does not look at Andrew. A half-truth on the roof. It should be funny. It is not.

“More of the same,” Kevin says testily. “Ravens everywhere and Riko trying to steal jobs.”

That’s a lie. But they don’t know.

Riko was always at the Nest. Always. He was there every hour, because he was either with Neil or with his uncle. He was always there.

Always.

Neil breathes in. He forgot to breathe, for a second.

Seth is watching Neil with a trickle of suspicion, but he continues. “Everything is in order. We’ll visit and talk to them. It’s their summer mansion we need to go to, so we’ll be outside the city.”

“And if we need help, it won’t come,” Kevin adds tersely. “We have to be careful about this.”

“What exactly is the problem?” Neil finally asks, mostly because he is aggravated and partly because it seems like the right question to ask. He just wants to move. Anything to get rid of the leftover hum from the magic he used at Eden’s.

The leftover hum from whatever happened with Andrew.

Nicky stops biting his lip long enough to speak. “They’re not sure. It might be Ravens, harassing them. They wouldn’t have contacted me if it wasn’t important.”

“Why are you sure?”

“They—”

“Hate him,” Aaron finishes. He appears at the entry to the dining hall, shrugging a jacket on. He is nearly as agitated as Kevin. Neil examines him for the poisons he expects and finds only a few items at Aaron’s belt.

Neil remembers to ask, “Why?”

Nicky lifts his chin. “Because of what I am.”

“A Fox?”

Nicky falters. Seems uncertain. Neil does not know what conflict is there, but then, Nicky explains, “Because of the—company, I keep.”

Oh. _Oh._

“That is not a what. What changes,” Neil says simply. “It is a who. Your parents do not like who you are.”

The Foxes are silent. For a blinding moment, Neil thinks he has done something very wrong.

Except Nicky blinks a little too quickly and his lips press together like he’s struggling to hold a flood. He might be. “Yeah,” Nicky replies, quiet and unsteady. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“If we’re done with the blankets and cocoa,” Andrew says drily, twirling a knife in his hand. “It will be late if we do not move soon.”

His tone is hiding something. Since he set foot in the Foxhole, he has been tense. Neil noticed this change in a visible way, unlike the change at Eden’s. Andrew’s body had seemed to compact. He became denser, smaller—almost as if he were making himself less of a target. Or maybe more of a threat.

Neil wonders what it is about family.

“You’ll need to be careful,” Abby tells them, while they prepare to leave. She has a few bottles for them, all glowing a little, all humming with potential. “You only have so much. Remember, if you need help, it will take time. One worry that something is wrong, and you send someone out.”

_Sure,_ Neil thinks, glancing at Kevin. _Not likely._

* * *

The mansion sits where it always has. It crouches like a beast on the edge of the city, by the ragged beach that cannot be used as a port. The sand blows into the grass here, so it is impossible to walk barefoot and be comfortable.

That seems to sum up the place. Such a nice façade, but beneath, there is grit that rubs away at the skin.

Andrew’s black stallion keeps pace easily behind Neil’s spotted one. The Foxhole horses are few, but Wymack had them before he had the Foxes and he recognized the importance of keeping them. So, Andrew has Nova. No one else is allowed near the stallion. It’s a condition.

Meanwhile, Neil has a preternatural affinity for all the horses. Andrew had watched the elf stand among the large creatures as the other Foxes tried to hammer out which Neil would take. Andrew didn’t have to point out that it didn’t matter; the horses took to him as if he had always been there.

So, Neil was given Ealah. Andrew was amused at the choice. The stallion was notoriously finicky.

Andrew just wanted to see if Neil would fall off.

Unfortunately, they make it to the mansion without incident. The sand blows low on the ground and the air is humid and heavy, despite the gentle breeze that blows from the coast.

Aaron twists his reigns in his hand. He leads instead of Kevin, because he knows the paths to take. He knows where the stables are. What to do. He jerks his head and says, “This way.”

The closer they come to the house, the more it seems to loom over them. Andrew ignores it entirely. His focus is on what lies inside and what lies have been told to bring them here.

This is all a lie, of course. That much, Andrew knows.

An unrecognizable face takes the horses at the stable. Aaron leads them up to the front doors; Nicky uneasily twists the hem of his shirt in his hands. Andrew is tempted to smack his shoulder just to get him to stop.

The doors open after Aaron knocks. They are heavy and tall. Too tall.

“You’re here.” The woman smiles. She has no name to Andrew. She is just the woman. Just a woman that has done things. Things that have revoked her right to a name.

The man is the same. His smile is tight, but he reaches out toward Aaron. “It’s good to see you, again.”

They do not even hide the fact that they ignore Nicky to greet Aaron first. That they avoid Andrew entirely.

The woman looks up and sees the Foxes. Andrew can almost see her counting. “There are so many,” she says tightly. “I thought you would only bring three.”

“We want to be careful.” It is funny to see Aaron be the voice. He chews the words like leather. Kevin is probably dying because he is not able to speak. “Since we aren’t sure what’s happening. Have you had problems since we last spoke?”

“No. No problems,” the woman says lightly. She is forcing it. “Why don’t you come inside and eat? That would be good. You must be hungry. Right? I made something.”

Even an idiot could see. Yet Nicky and Aaron don’t see. Maybe even Kevin doesn’t.

Andrew knows the second Neil sits next to him that Neil sees. He wonders when that happened. If it was before, or after.

Andrew wonders why Neil is selectively astute, and then he jams potatoes into his mouth to avoid that particular train of thought.

He can feel him. Can feel the presence upstairs.

It has been a while since his last does, Andrew notes. This should be alarming, but Andrew cannot care enough to do anything about it. He cannot do anything about it, in the middle of dinner with the worst family and people that could possibly be brought together over a lie.

One of Neil’s ears flicks.

Andrew stares.

He stares and he—

—almost, _almost_ laughs.

It’s absurd. Andrew does not know if he knew that Neil’s ears could move. That elf ears could move. He considers it might have been his imagination. That this is all some roiling fever dream. Perhaps, like Neil, it is all an illusion.

That certainly will not make it better, though. It never does.

* * *

He can hear movement. Neil slides a bean across his plate and watches it with unseeing eyes. He tries to adjust—to lean into the sound, like leaning into the wind.

This was always a trap, from the moment they set foot inside.

That makes Neil angry.

He knows better than to expect mercy from Riko. But Neil knows the Ravens inside and out. He knows the propriety and the honor and the dignity that is drilled into them. He knows the way that bargains are made and kept.

Riko has dishonored himself. He has broken his one promise to do this. Just to gloat. Just to watch in the shadows and laugh softly, curled up in his darkness and smoke.

_If you want it to end._

Fine, then. If Riko cannot keep his promise, Neil will not be bothered to keep his.

“Excuse me.” Neil stands from his seat and walks away. He does not wait to be excused. He only feels the smoke curl up his throat and the static hum in his veins.

The magic is violence. He avoids it at every turn, but—

— _but_ , he can’t.

Not when Riko is hounding him. Not when every attempt at mending things has brought another tear in the fabric of the Foxes. Hole after hole. Neil is just trying to sew them up before they bleed out.

He goes upstairs. He can hear the conversation downstairs, distant and whispered. Furious. The man and woman are agitated. They did not want so many people here. They ask about Neil. Talk about the strange elf with his strange scars.

Neil honestly doesn’t give a damn.

He pauses on the landing. Silently, waits for a noise. A breath. A step. Anything.

He is rewarded for his patience with the creak of a bed.

Neil follows the sound to the end of the hall. Some sort of large bedroom, with thick carpeting and the heaviness of dust and age in the air. Neil pushes the wood door and feels the rich oak give way. If he pushed a little harder, he could probably throw it off its hinges. Neil distantly wonders if the man inside would be crushed, or if he would dodge away.

Sweat. Leather.

_Stay quiet or so help me, I will paint the walls with your brains._ Heavy hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder. Turning him into a cupboard. The suffocation of the cloaks as he watched the people in the basement, mulling around and laughing.

The blood wasn’t yet dry on their hands.

“Oh, this is nice,” the man says. He smiles. His teeth are too clean. Nathaniel always remembered that—too clean, for a soldier. “He sent me an appetizer.”

It would be simple for everything to come back in a rush. For Neil to remember the man’s name and if Nathan gave the orders. If Neil has always known what happened to Andrew, or if it came together as Riko was carving mockery and knives into Neil’s flesh.

Nothing comes. Nothing but the hum of magic.

The man takes a step back. His hand disappears behind him, for a weapon or something else. Neil ignores it. He lets the magic come and closes his eyes.

He does not want it to be this way.

Neil reaches out. He lets the magic slide from him like mud from a shoe, thick and clotting. It thuds in his veins. The room is awash with blue-white glow and he knows—can _feel_ —the way the others downstairs feel it. The way Kevin and Andrew and Nicky all react, different levels of knowledge resulting in different answering hums.

They are coming. Until then, Neil only has to stay calm. Only has to stand there, impassive, while this monster before him works his way into the grave.

Apparently, that is too much to ask.

The man’s arm swings and a bottle comes at Neil. It cracks—not on skin or bone, but with the magic hum that hovers over Neil’s body. The man’s triumphant smile is misplaced.

Neil exhales. Blinks slowly. The world reels.

_Oh._

Magic.

His nerves are on fire. The hum is no longer a hum; it is a _hum_. A rattling in his blood. It is a rise of heat that overcomes him.

Neil hits his knees. He is choking on it. Choking on how _much_ there is.

The door slams behind him. He is too dizzy to pay attention. There are yells and Neil sees the man raise his hand again, this time with something gleaming and silver.

A scream and then silence.

Andrew is saying something to Aaron but Neil—

—Neil is humming. He is on another plane, his body screaming and his entire being exploding.

A noise escapes Neil’s lips. He does not know if it is a groan, a moan, a cry. It leaves him, and he falls to the floor, curled in on himself, his magic crackling with intensity.

Nicky is calling his name. “What is it? What’s—”

“Don’t touch him,” Kevin commands. He is panting. _Why is he panting?_ “It’s not safe.”

Neil’s brain is foggy. He feels too much. His magic hisses and snaps. It resists, and Neil’s last thought is that he should not let it go.

But he can.

So he does.

His magic carves its way through him. It shoves out the intrusion and Neil grits his teeth. This time, the sound that leaves is clear. It is barely-contained pain. He tamps it down and lets his magic do the work, eating his insides and leaving nothing but static behind.

He knows his eyes are blue-white. He knows his scars are glowing.

Neil also knows that there is a miasma around him. Magic that is void—no good, no bad. Just magic.

He is the only one like himself that he knows.

“Neil?” Nicky’s voice is almost a whisper. He sounds uneven. Broken. Like he’s been crying. Maybe he has.

Neil tries to push himself up. He feels unsteady. Weak. He reels and hits the wall, his side pressed to it. He closes his eyes and lets the cool wood steady him.

“What is that?” Kevin’s question is distant. The beginnings of horror seep into his words.

Neil opens his eyes and finds that his bandages are gone. The magic ate them away. His clothes are fine—he has some control—but his skin is exposed.

The sigil on his cheek is exposed.

_Ah._ “Ah,” Neil says, and then he promptly faints.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> andrew: yeet  
> neil: well guess i gotta yeet myself
> 
> SO! I hope you are enjoying the story...I was out of town for several days, but! I am back! And! I am participating in the AFTG Reverse Bang! So uh be on the lookout I guess haha. I'll make sure to add it in this collection when I do it!  
> As always, I love you all and I appreciate your comments so much! If I don't answer your questions, rest assured, it's because the answer is gonna come up in the story ;0


	9. Levitate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are plenty of things they choose not to talk about. But Andrew chooses to trade truth with Neil, and that is important.  
> It is also important when Neil ends up in a brothel and Andrew goes after him. Unfortunately, there is not enough time to think about this. Or so they think.

He thinks about the rooftop, most of the ride back.

Andrew can see Neil launching himself off the roof, his hand outstretched. Andrew can remember the exact look on Neil’s face; the way Neil was just a breath away.

There is something to be said for the determination that was there. The desire.

Andrew has not seen desire on Neil’s face any other time. He wants to see it again. To know it.

_Stupid._ Neil is stupid. He almost fell into the bay. Andrew almost wishes he had, just to teach him a lesson. You cannot jump and land on the ground every time. You cannot escape broken bones or drowning.

He was just lucky.

Andrew stands in the doorway to Abby’s secret room. He has the feeling Neil will be a frequent tenant.

“They are not going to be happy.”

Neil is too tired to snap at Andrew for stating the obvious. Andrew does not entirely know how to feel about that.

_Lie._ He knows what he feels.

The elf tilts his head back. Looks up at the ceiling and at this angle, Andrew can see the sigil carved into Neil’s cheek. It fits in the space over the curve of his older scar—the one that connects to the vine-like scrolls that cup the side of his face and disappear down the neck of his shirt.

The sigil is the fourth in a series. Four of six.

Kevin has the second.

“Was that all?” Neil’s question brings Andrew back and reminds him he was once again distracted. By Neil.

Something twists in his chest. Andrew lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I am not concerned with saving an elf that doesn’t know how to save himself.”

“I’m not. Not entirely.”

Andrew blinks.

Neil shrugs. “Half. My mother. I couldn’t have lived with other elves, though. They tend to not like half-breeds.”

_Half-breeds._ Andrew thinks he tastes something sour coming up his throat. He is not going to think about this half-elf with his scars and his displacement, no—

—he’s not.

“I am not going to give you something,” Andrew says instead. He can’t string the words together now and anyway, he has no fucking clue what he would say. What he would give.

That is the thing. Neil keeps giving pieces of himself, bigger and bigger. Andrew knows there is no weight; no measuring against each other, but he still feels uneven. Like Neil is giving more than Andrew could ever give.

He should not care about the balance. He does.

Neil moves his legs to the edge of the bed. A shiver of exhaustion and nausea crawls over his skin but he squashes it quickly. Andrew is getting better at catching that in-between the truth in the misdirection.

“That’s fine. I didn’t tell you to get something in return.”

The thing is, Neil is telling the truth. Right now, and before, even. He does not lie to Andrew and he never has. Neil misleads, sometimes. Yet Andrew suddenly cannot place a moment when Neil has directly lied to him.

It should not be so important to him.

The other are waiting. Neil walks into the dining hall and Andrew watches him sit where he always does—near the door, close to three escape routes. Halfway turned out of his chair with one leg on the seat. That part doesn’t seem practical, but it looks comfortable.

Kevin still looks ashen. It’s been a day, and everyone is rested and clean and full, but Kevin looks like he just walked out of that bedroom.

The—

—no.

“So? When were you planning on telling us about that?” Seth gestures at Neil’s cheek. He is tense, his arms resting on the table and his mouth a hard line.

Neil shrugs. “I thought I would cover it. Or something.”

Kevin stirs. “You can’t,” he says automatically. Seth shoots him a poisonous look. “You cannot cover it. He did it for a reason. He wants—”

“Funny. I do not give a single fuck about what he wants.”

Their silence is different. Andrew knows Kevin’s silence—a lurking creature tugging at his sleeve, nagging him, reminding him about _Master_ this and _Riko_ that.

Neil…is different.

His silence is a mass. A shadow. It’s a pit beneath him that he is ready to fall into, with sticky hands and a cacophony of voices. But Neil patiently sits suspended above it all, waiting, because if someone were to tip his chair he’d fall in and say _I knew it would happen._ And if not, well—

—no one would be the wiser.

Neil’s silence could kill him. And that feels familiar.

“So,” Dan says quietly. “I still don’t understand. Why would you go with him? Why didn’t you tell us? Nothing he could have said—”

“What? Nothing could have been too much to handle?” Neil asks quietly. “Do you know him?”

Dan glances at Kevin. Neil follows her gaze and his eyelids lower, just a little. He looks as if he wants to close his eyes or maybe sigh, but he can’t. Even in the Foxhole, surrounded by people who would protect him, Neil does not relax.

“You can’t judge him through Kevin,” Neil says flatly. “Kevin still thinks the Master is in charge. That Riko is.”

“He is,” Kevin hisses. His eyes are blazing. He might be burning from outside in. “You know. You have seen, now. You know how bad this is. He and Riko—”

“I already said I do not care,” Neil replies steadily, each word emphasized. He leans back in his chair and Andrew notices the vacant magic hum. _Burning from inside out._

Wymack sighs. Apparently, he has finally decided it is time to intervene. “All right, arguing isn’t going to give us a plan. Obviously, we should probably err on the side of caution.”

Neil doesn’t speak, but he does raise an eyebrow. Andrew almost laughs at that. Amusing, if petty.

“Now what?” Aaron asks tersely. “He already got himself beaten up. Our job was sabotaged—”

“As if there was ever a job,” Neil scoffs; the sound is airy, light—but his coldness is there. His calculated edge. “You knew it was a bad idea before you set foot outside this place.”

Aaron’s hand curls on the edge of the table. Andrew leans forward and finds himself speaking—

_because of Aaron,_ he thinks, but another voice says _because of you_ —

—and Andrew says, “Your immense knowledge did nothing. You did nothing.”

Neil’s eyes turn on Andrew. For a fraction of a second, it is there.

The truth.

_He did something._

Andrew does not know when or how. All he sees in Neil’s eyes is the truth. The truth that Neil has suffered, somehow, for this.

It makes Andrew angry, because he does not need protecting, but there is something else mingled with the anger. A stab. A pain in his chest.

He wonders if he needs magic from Kevin, again. _Lie._

“He is not going to stop,” Neil says quietly. “We cannot let him.”

Wymack moves from the bar. “Hey. I know this is all shit, but we can’t just murder him. Besides the guard, there’s the guild. At best, we lose membership. At worst, we all go to jail. Then what? Execution?”

This one is visible.

Everyone notices the way Neil stiffens. The way his eyes go flat, and his blue eyes glow a little too blue, magic bleeding from his mind.

The reaction is forcibly shoved away, like all the rest, but Neil’s hand wanders to his neck. Like he is touching a memory. When he looks at Wymack, Neil’s eyes are pools of deception. They hide whatever it is he could not say, and Andrew cannot find the drops of violence in their depths, anymore.

“We cannot publicly murder him, you mean. And anyway, it isn’t murder if you are protecting yourself.”

Allison is the one that mutters, “Fantastic. So, he’s got dubious morals about that, too. I didn’t realize we had picked up another Andrew.”

Andrew fixes her with a stare she doesn’t notice. Or chooses not to.

“He is going to come again,” Neil says dismissively. He rises from his chair, still a little stiff. “Let’s make sure it’s in public.”

* * *

He has always enjoyed looking at the stars. The moon.

Celestial bodies are distant; they are safe. Beautiful but untouchable, so there is no risk of punishment.

Neil turns on his side and closes his eyes for a moment. Curls up a little more. He tries not to think of his mother, but sometimes, she surfaces. The bones will not stay drowned.

_Do not even look._ The sting of a slap on his cheek. _Do you know how much danger you put yourself in? Us?_

He traces the outline of a key onto his palm. The real thing is on a thinly braided chain and it rests over his heart.

Just because it slid there when he lay down.

“I should not be surprised.”

_Neither should I._ But Neil does not say it. He is not certain why he came up here, when he knew Andrew would come.

This was here before Neil; it will last after. Neil feels a little guilty, that he has taken this thing. “I can leave. If you—”

“I was not raised with Aaron.”

Neil blinks. It’s—

— _not_ what he expected. He stumbles a little to keep up, but he wants to keep up. Has to, because Andrew does not offer things all the time. Not even sometimes. He keeps his debts close to his chest and parcels them out in passing, as if Neil won’t notice the half-truths peppered in their conversations.

“Why?”

Andrew sinks down to the roof. Leans back, languid and easy. His glance reminds Neil that this is balance. The answers are balance. “The—our mother. She kept him and gave me away.”

It actually explains a lot. But not everything. Neil considers, as he always does—but like always, it does not last. He keeps moving forward.

“What happened?”

Andrew could withdraw. He could decide that it is too high a price. He would not lie, Neil knows, but he has a right to silence.

Neil expects silence.

Except Andrew flicks something in his fingers and Neil smells smoke as Andrew says, “I told her not to touch him. I promised him. She didn’t listen.”

Well.

Neil curls tighter. Wonders what if would have been like, to have promises. To have anything other than solitude.

Maybe he is still curling into himself and away from the blows.

Andrew’s hand moves. The smoke is heavier. It is not the same as the burning Neil remembers. He sucks it in, maybe for the pain and maybe for something else. Neil wonders if it could fill his lungs like cotton. If going would feel like this. Pleasant drifting.

It would not. He knows this.

“My mother took me and ran. She did not get far.” Neil closes his eyes. He can see her hands pressed to her side. The blood. He can smell it. “Years meant nothing. It was taken easily. It could have been taken sooner. It was a game.”

The smoke clings. Andrew’s hand moves. He offers it to Neil and Neil—

—he cups his hand, like he can catch the smoke and trap it there. He imagines it feels warm on his skin. He inhales slowly, from his chest and all the way up to his mouth. It is a whisper on his tongue.

Andrew watches.

“You don’t know how to do it.”

Neil laughs. Short, soft, once. Andrew tenses. “I do. I only—I want the smoke.”

He pretends not to notice the coil of tension in Andrew’s arm, because Andrew does not comment on the way Neil leans in to breathe the secondhand smoke.

Maybe Neil is not as much of an intruder on the roof as he thought.

* * *

His body is sore. He wakes with the distinct feeling that he must have a fever or some sickness, but then he sees his hand at the edge of the bed.

Neil rises to find his bandages singed off.

His forehead is sticky. His scars throb and his throat is pinhole-wide. This is not illness. This is magic. This is the usual curse, rearing its ugly head when he is most at risk. Except most mornings, it is not this bad.

There’s a small towel at the basin in the corner. Neil runs the damp cloth over his body and changes, but the agitation in his limbs lingers. He can see the glow when he looks down. The magic vibrates in his bones, too low to do anything, but there.

When he gets downstairs, Nicky smiles and then freezes.

“Um. Neil?”

“What?”

Nicky squirms in his seat. The little gold hoop on his ear glints when he turns his head to look back at Wymack. Whatever silent communication happens between them is lost on Neil. “Are you okay? You kind of…you’re kind of glowy.”

_Shit._ It hasn’t gone away. Neil looks down at his arms and wills it to stop.

It never works. It doesn’t.

“Just leftover.”

Nicky’s hand curls around his glass. _Shit. Again._ “Why don’t we go out on a job? Maybe that’ll help.”

There’s no mistaking Nicky’s misplaced cheer. He is trying, though, and Neil wants to help him. He wants to make the mistakes go away. The decision he made to let things unfold at the mansion and the disaster that followed.

Neil wants to leave the Foxes whole, or as close to it as he can get them. This is just how he has to do it.

“Sure.”

“Not alone,” Matt announces. He comes down the stairs, adjusting the light leather armor he usually wears when he goes out. “Anyway, I have a job I need help on.”

“What is it?” Nicky frowns. “I didn’t see anything on the board.”

Matt raises a finger to his lips. Nicky opens his mouth to protest but Neil coughs. It’s enough to effectively distract Nicky; his attention immediately swivels to Neil. “You sure you’re okay to go out—”

Neil ignores the question and steers Nicky toward the door by means of walking, himself. Nicky trails behind him and Matt follows along, relaxed as usual.

Once they are outside, Matt stops. “The job is in the district Dan used to work in. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t believe she could do it. I just picked it up first.”

“You do realize she’ll probably just be more apt to think you’re protecting her, since you didn’t tell her about it?” Nicky raises an eyebrow.

Neil is lost.

“Well, I can deal with that later.” Matt sighs. “I just took it because everyone else seemed busy.”

Neil shifts on his feet. He feels like he’s burning with unused energy. “Where is it?”

“It’s not—” Matt stumbles. Clears his throat. He seems determined; Neil does not understand why. “The thing about it—”

“Red Room,” Nicky helpfully interrupts.

Neil nods and starts walking.

A few seconds later, he hears quick footsteps. Matt is by his side. “Wait. Don’t you…I mean, are you okay with this?”

“What? It’s a job. I needed one.” Neil glances at Matt, unsettled. The question seems stupid. The answer is obvious.

“Well, yes,” Matt says, flustered. “But—I mean, does it bother you? That she—”

“Why should it matter to me what she does with her body? It is hers.”

Matt stops in his tracks. Nicky makes a choked noise and almost trips over his feet.

Neil finally stops, not because he wants to, but because he is getting the idea that Matt will not continue with the job until this is done. “I really do not care,” Neil presses. “It is not my place. Besides, I don’t think any of you exactly came from convents. I would be stupid if I expected as much from her.”

Matt visibly swallows. “You know,” he says weakly, “I think I might actually really love you.”

“Get in line.” Nicky snorts. “And get a move on. We have a job to do!”

Neil is glad Nicky doesn’t see. That Matt doesn’t notice. Because the word _love_ leaves someone’s mouth and Neil cannot remember ever having heard it. He cannot remember his mother saying it and does not think anyone else ever has.

He tries not to think about it while they make their way downtown.

* * *

“Where is he?”

Wymack stares warily at Andrew from behind the bar. “Matt had a job. Took Nicky, too.”

“Where?”

“Red Room,” Wymack replies thinly.

Andrew digests the information. _Red Room._ He’s been a few times. Never used the services. The one indiscretion he ever mistakenly indulged in was at Eden’s Twilight.

It occurs to Andrew that he is not certain how Neil will handle it. He has seen Neil shy away from touch and react violently to specific things. “He should not be there.”

He did not mean to say it out loud. Wymack looks pained for a moment and then he rubs his forehead, clearly tired. “Why not? He’s with Matt and Nicky. He’ll be fine. There’s no reason he can’t go out.”

“Not there,” Andrew repeats.

Wymack’s hands brace on the counter. His mouth presses tight as if he is trying not to let something out. Andrew wishes he would stay quiet. The man does not. “This isn’t healthy.”

Andrew stares. He considers the knives on the counter behind Wymack. The man moves to block his view as if he knows what Andrew is thinking. He probably does.

“You can’t ignore it. The more you do—”

“I’m not the ignorant one,” Andrew says shortly.

Wymack almost looks pitying for a moment. Andrew is tempted to slap the look away.

Instead, he rises from his chair and make his way out the front door.

* * *

“We just need to know where Lady Mirena went,” Matt explains for the hundredth time.

Neil is crawling in his skin. He wishes he had waited at the Foxhole. He wishes he had taken his energy out in the training yard.

He wishes he were anywhere but the Red Room.

The place smells like perfume and roses. Freshly washed laundry. There are men and women milling about, all in gauzy clothing. The little pearls in their hair glow under the soft light. Some are bare-faced, and others have painted eyes and lips. None of them look quite the same, but they all have flowers behind one ear. Nicky explained that they gave the flowers to patrons.

Everything is too heavy. Neil is distracted by the number of people around him and the curious glances that take in his scars.

There are too many interested people. He can’t gauge what they want.

The man Matt is speaking to hums. “As I said, I’m not sure. She did speak about leaving her husband, but never with specifics. We all supported her, you know. He was a pig.”

Matt sighs. This is the same as every other conversation they’ve had in the past hour. All vague. All about how Lady Mirena was more than justified, don’t-you-know, and her husband was despicable.

Of course, the Lord said his wife was confused and flighty. That she was likely in danger.

“Speak to Alisandra. I think she had an appointment with Lady Mirena. They would be meeting today.”

“All right,” Matt says. “Thank you.”

Neil is tired. He is tired, and he aches. He can barely concentrate.

He just wants to _move_.

* * *

The looks aren’t hard to miss. Andrew knows Neil is already there, because he can see the way the attention has shifted. The way some people whisper and giggle behind their hands as they glance upstairs. The whispers of _red_ and _blue_ that ripple among the flowers.

Andrew clenches his jaw and makes his way upstairs.

He only gets halfway before he hears a yell and an unearthly roar.

* * *

Neil barely dodges a blow. The demon before him twists; its body is like lava, molten and cracked and shifting. His body cries in relief at even the slightest movement.

“Why am I not surprised.”

Andrew. He is in the doorway, turning a vial of blood in his hand like he did the smoke on the roof.

Nicky looks back at his cousin, confused. Neil taps his dagger on his thigh. “I could say the same to you.”

“Later!” Matt yells. He escapes a hand that stretches inhumanly toward him, white-hot and losing form fast.

Nicky flips a sword in his hand and cheerfully dances around the demon. While he flanks, Neil notices Andrew throw the vial in his hand to the floor. It burns and glows before the blood trickles like a creature, forming a sigil beneath the demon. It is almost alive, in a way.

Neil considers the fight. He is itching to move, but he is distantly aware that close-quarters is probably not practical in this case.

_I wonder…_

Usually, the rise of magic is something Neil fights with tooth and nail. He resists its intrusion with every fiber of his being.

It’s just too much, now. It is piling up and he needs to let it out.

Neil lets the hum in his bones take over. It sounds like a drum in his ears, the thrum and vibration shaking him from the core. The blue-white shines from his skin and clings along the surface, hazy at the edges.

It is good. For some reason—for some unknowable, shocking reason—the magic does not eat him from within. It just _comes_.

Neil darts forward. He clings to one of the posts on the bed in the center of the room and hangs, one dagger in his teeth and the other in his free hand. He distantly hears Matt shout something. Nicky is too determined to hit the demon. Andrew is by the door.

_Here goes._

All it takes is letting go. His fingers uncurl from the wood and he falls, both hands on the dagger and his body ablaze with light. The blade cuts through the demon; it slices down the back with deadly precision. Neil can feel the heat radiate up his arms. It is muted, but not gone. Like standing too close to a fire.

When he hits the ground, Neil rocks back on his feet and waits. The demon shrieks. It twists and then—

—someone steps away.

The twisting form burns in place, but another person slides away from the wreckage. They step closer to Neil where he stands on the carpet, breathless and humming with magic. He catches his breath at the twisted, shadow-wreathed figure. Her eyes burn into his with dark intent.

He knows her. He knows her dark hair and sharp eyes. He knows the evil in her.

He knows, and he gasps out a breath, sucking in air he did not realize he had not been breathing.

“I will come for you,” she says softly. “Soon.”

She presses a hand to his chest. Neil feels it tear through the fabric of his clothes and it sears his skin, red-hot and angry. A half-scream escapes his lips before he swallows it. Before he falls to his knees.

The woman is gone. The demon-shell collapses and Neil breathes, his throat pinhole-tight again and his chest throbbing painfully.

Matt pushes himself up from the floor where he was thrown, his hair disheveled and his axe clanking against the floorboards. His face is red and the sweat on his brow reminds Neil of the heat that just consumed the room moments ago.

Neil blinks. He is on his knees. He feels odd—not weak, yet drained. Relaxed. The heaviness in his bones is sapped away.

He barely notices when Nicky crouches next to him, panting and worried. Neil sees Andrew watching him from the doorway, his mouth half-open and eyes narrowed. He feels something. Probably _her._

“What,” Matt begins, shoving his hair away from his face, “was _that_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> neil: makin my way downtown, walking fast, having an emotional breakdown


	10. Emulate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil did not think he could come any closer. As always, the Foxes—one in particular—prove him wrong.  
> He is running out of time. Neil feels every hour as it slips by, but he tries to feel more. Like the hand on his neck or the lips pressed against his.

Neil’s first thought is that they saw.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He is a tangle of adrenaline and fear. His scars hum and all he can see is blood; all he can feel is a blade tracing his skin. Neil’s heart thrums in his ears and he wants to collapse on himself like a falling building.

“How the hell did that happen?” Nicky stands, panting, his hands on his hips. “Is Riko just possessing people, now?”

“Can’t be,” Matt says, but he sounds uncertain. Unnerved.

Neil doesn’t say it’s not Riko. It is easier to let them think this is Riko. Easier to push them to the side of caution. After all, Neil knows he might not make it all the way through. If his parting gift is caution, he could die peacefully.

Not that he has much of a choice.

Matt pulls Neil up from the floor. His hand is warm and despite the mess in the room, he seems untouched. “You all right? That was a risky move. I didn’t know you could just…”

“Avoid all damage?” Andrew finishes Matt’s sentence. His eyes are narrowed, and his gaze says he doesn’t believe it.

He probably shouldn’t.

Neil’s arms feel warm. He has a dull, feverish ache thrumming in his body. He has never tried whatever it was he just did. He’s not certain what will happen when he closes his eyes at night.

“We should get back.” Nicky’s eyebrows are pulled together; he looks worried. “We need to tell the others. It might not be safe to go out alone, now. If we’re supposed to try and draw him out, we need to stick together.”

Matt’s expression still says he doesn’t agree with the plan, but he moves toward the door. “We do need to tell Wymack. Hopefully, no one else has left yet.”

Hope has nothing to do with it, Neil thinks. This is all memory and the past. Things he can’t fight.

It’s why he won’t survive.

* * *

Andrew watches Neil hang around the corner of the kitchen. He is still burning.

There are a few things Andrew is intimately familiar with. One of them is this; too much power comes at a price. There is no way to avoid consequences when it comes to magic. It finds you. It is in you.

Neil looks feverish. His cheeks are redder than usual. The freckles stand out more than before—although Andrew has always seen him, he won’t admit it—and there is an invisible wind moving Neil’s hair.

It is like the bedroom. Something about him screams of agitation. Not in the way Kevin is agitated; this is bone-deep. This is a disquiet in Neil’s blood itself.

Maybe that is why Andrew can feel an answer in his veins. It all comes back to blood.

“We are going,” Andrew announces. He peels himself from the wall and starts toward the stairs.

Wymack sighs. He might have been in the middle of speaking. “We just talked about this. It’s not safe to—”

“Eden’s,” Andrew answers. Short. To the point. It is all he needs to say.

Wymack might try to stop him with more words, but they are useless.

The others are ready when Andrew comes back downstairs. Aaron seems resigned. Andrew doesn’t entirely care. His eyes are pulled to Neil again—a figure of red and blue, something breathless about the way his quick fingers make a dagger dance in his hand.

Andrew forces his gaze away from the shining blade.

Eden’s is bright. Loud. It is only just a sheen, however; it has only ever been a symphony louder than the grating noises in his head. Andrew finds that tonight, it is not helping as much as he needs it to. The din barely scratches the surface of the whispers coming from inside. The whispers from his blood.

_Say something,_ they tell him. _Do something._

The little whispers are almost as annoying as Neil jumping from the roof.

The thought is intrusive. Andrew feels his mouth twist and he flattens it before it can become a scowl. He does not need this, now.

Except he sees Neil returning from the bar, a tray balanced in his hand and a distant look in his eyes, and all Andrew wants to do is reach out and hold him down. Find out whether this strange half-elf is real; if Andrew can touch him, really, and feel skin and blood and bone beneath him.

Neil slides the tray onto the table. For some reason, he is the one that opens his mouth first. “Why does Roland say you don’t let anyone on the roof?”

Andrew’s hand tightens on his glass. It might break. _Do it._ Andrew wonders if it would help. If the whispers would bleed out enough.

He used to think it would help. He abandoned the idea around the same time he abandoned the feeling that came with giving in to the thought.

“I don’t,” Andrew says shortly. He figures a little too late that it’s exactly the wrong thing to say. _But you knew that when you opened your mouth, didn’t you? You did it on purpose._

Neil hesitates. He seems confused, or maybe uncertain. “You let me.”

Fantastic. Wonderful. _Shocking observation,_ Andrew wants to say. He wants to snarl. Wants to break glass. Wants to refuse this—

—the _feeling_.

He is not supposed to feel, anymore. The rawness is supposed to be gone. He only allows one thing. He only allows protection.

Not this.

There must be truth bleeding out. Neil’s eyes widen a little and then comes his answer. His shattered little whisper. “Oh.”

Fantastic.

“You like me.”

“I hate you,” Andrew says reflexively. “What kind of moron throws themselves off a roof? Jumps in the way of an arrow—”

“You like that I did those things.” Neil spills all at once, in blurted realizations. Andrew wants to slam a hand over his mouth, but he can’t. He is hearing the truth and that’s the game. “You like me because I did those things.”

Andrew rises from his chair. He can’t sit still any longer. It takes too much energy.

He walks toward the stairs and the roof. Neil takes a half-step and then hesitates, unsure. He must find something in Andrew’s glance that lets him follow.

The roof doesn’t help. If anything, it makes it worse.

Andrew can see the specter of Neil lunging for his keys. He can see Neil in the alley below, fighting men while Seth staggers to his feet. He can see Neil next to him, an afterimage—

—or maybe that’s now and maybe Andrew can’t untangle past and present.

Future?

The word cracks in his chest like a broken rib. Something— _someone_ —is reaching for his heart and the pain of it is almost too much. It always did hurt a little too much, for him. It is half of why he stopped. Why Andrew buried that feeling with all the rest, save for one.

He is out of practice. But then, Neil seems to have no practice. Maybe they are perfect.

“Would you?” Neil’s question is hushed. The color in his cheeks isn’t the fever, anymore. There is more fear than pain.

It occurs to Andrew that this is the first time Neil has looked at him with fear—except he is not afraid of Andrew.

Neil is afraid of wanting. He is just as terrified as Andrew does not want to be, but he is ready. Neil is just as ready to move closer as he was to jump and that—

—that is the nail in Andrew’s coffin.

“That’s a question,” Andrew says. He takes a step closer. Tries to assemble his answer. He wonders if it will feel like more broken bones. Or perhaps they are being set. “Don’t touch unless I tell you to. Stop if I tell you.”

Neil’s mouth opens. He takes a sharp breath in. Andrew looks for the magic first—the blue glow and hum—and he is aware he is looking for an excuse.

There is no threat. Just Neil, with his bright eyes and hopeless anticipation.

He always has been good at defying Andrew’s excuses.

Andrew presses Neil back against the closed door to the roof. The little gasp that catches in Neil’s throat is trapped and Andrew leans in because he cannot stand to see the truth on Neil’s face for a second longer.

* * *

Neil thought Andrew was angry, but this—

—well. Perhaps Andrew is angry, but if that’s the case, Neil is unfortunately desperate to piss him off.

The press of Andrew’s lips against Neil’s feels like nothing. Like there is no magic—no pain, no fear, no insistent burn of power. There is only warmth and the certainty of Andrew’s hand on his chest, pressing, grounding.

Perfect.

The only thing that remains is how breathless Neil is when Andrew pulls back. He is reeled in by a cool hand on his neck; it the only thing that seems to make sense.

Andrew’s eyes narrow. “You are spiraling, elf.”

“Half,” Neil replies distractedly. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

For a good minute, Andrew just stares. Neil wonders what is going through his mind and assumes it is something vaguely murderous.

Finally, Andrew shakes his head and steps away. “You need sleep.”

_Well._

“Are you trying to distract me, Andrew?”

“You do. You’ve looked like shit all afternoon.”

“Be still, my heart.”

Andrew’s mouth twists in annoyance. He stubbornly looks in the other direction. Neil almost laughs. He wonders how long he has been missing these things—these moments. Little truths unwittingly given.

This can be another game, Neil thinks. To learn why on earth Andrew decided to let Neil stay. To learn why he let Neil close—

—and more importantly, why he let Neil even closer.

* * *

There is not much time.

That has always been the problem. No time. Neil wonders what it feels like not to run—he has been running since he left the Executioner, running since he left Riko, running since he met the Foxes and had to put himself between them and the arrows that flew their way.

He wishes he could stop running.

The little vial on his windowsill gleams blood-red. Neil stares at it through the glass and runs his finger along the wood paneling. He could leave it there—leave it like his past, forgotten at the doors to a place he finally feels is safe.

Except someone else would see the little bottle, and he does not want to think of what would happen, then.

So, Neil slides the window open and reaches out for the vial. It is warm beneath his fingers; too warm. Too alive.

It is his life.

It is also slipping by with each passing minute. The bottle pulses softly and he watches it for an hour. The liquid contents recede just a little.

Someone knocks and draws Neil from his watch. He blinks and stows the vial in his pocket.

Neil finds Kevin in the hallway, looking for all the world like he does not want to be there. For a painful moment, Neil has an image of Kevin, once everything is finished. When he is completely free. When there is no more threat from the Ravens.

_I wish I could see it._

“Andrew was looking for you.” Kevin’s nose scrunches. “Well. I mean—”

“I get it.”

Kevin hangs by the door.

Neil waits for the rest. When Kevin stands there for a minute too long, Neil gives in. “What else?”

“Why aren’t you afraid?”

It is not quite what Neil expected. He wonders if that is simply what the Foxes do—challenge him. What he thinks is supposed to happen.

“Why are you?”

Kevin shakes his head once, helplessly. “You know what he can do. I know you know. You were there. I remember—”

“It was years ago. What do you remember?”

_What do you remember that I don’t?_

There is a hole in Neil’s head. A black mark where there should be something.

He remembers his childhood. Remembers what Riko did and what the Executioner carved into him. Neil does not remember what happened—what change there was, to pull Neil away from the light and the one person he had ever met that did seemed somehow like him.

Neil knows now that he and Kevin are nothing alike. Their paths diverged long ago.

“I know you were there, and I know you were being tested. Like I was. The Master was training Riko, then. He wanted us to be a part of that, too. I was.”

“You were never a part of it,” Neil says quietly.

Kevin stares. “I was. I was with them—we did things—”

“You could never be one of them.” Neil flicks one of the feathers on Kevin’s shoulders. Watches the bluish color shift in the light. “You might have followed them, but you were never a Raven. Trust me.”

It takes a certain kind, Neil thinks, to blend in and survive.

Maybe they aren’t so different after all.

* * *

“What are you wearing?”

Neil looks down at his clothes, nonplussed. “We’re not at Eden’s.”

Andrew thinks he understands why Neil jumped from the roof.

“Not that.” Andrew gestures vaguely. He can feel the itch under his skin. “You have something on you. Something magic.”

The ironic twist to Neil’s lips is not attractive. It might actually be painful. Andrew wants to reach out and press, just to make it fade. To erase the film of worthlessness he sees.

Neil laughs quietly. He pulls his legs to his chest and peers out over the nearby harbor. “You might not have noticed, but I am magic.”

_Didn’t miss it._ Unfortunately, he never did.

Andrew still feels it. “No. You feel different. It is not you.”

There’s a twitch to Neil’s ears. Andrew is distracted by them for a moment, but he pulls his gaze back to Neil’s face. “Different? You can feel my magic?”

“I can.” Andrew wonders why it is not harder to answer this question, so he asks one of his own. “No one has told you that?”

Maybe it gives away just as much as his answer.

Neil shakes his head dazedly. “No. I thought it—I was nothing. I am nothing. It doesn’t…it isn’t supposed to feel like anything.”

“It doesn’t,” Andrew says immediately, but when the words leave his lips, he knows he is wrong.

It isn’t nothing. It is absence—but it feels like _something._

He just doesn’t know what.

Neil is close, Andrew realizes. They sit together on the wall that fences in the Foxhole, the stars reeling overhead as the moon takes over the sky. It is late. Most of the Foxes are out on night jobs or sleeping after a day job, before dinner is inevitably ready. It might be Wymack’s turn.

Not that Andrew cares. He is more interested in the body next to him.

“Why did you come?”

“Kevin said you were looking for me.”

Neil’s half-smile says he knows exactly what Andrew means. He is playing a game. He didn’t seem to like them much, before.

Then again, he did not seem that interested in Andrew before, either.

“I wanted to belong here.” Neil smiles at his feet and Andrew wants to hold his chin. Wants the sun turned on him, instead of the damned ground, which has done nothing to deserve Neil. “Just for a little while.”

“It’s been over a month.”

Neil laughs. Andrew did not entirely mean to snap, but then he seems to more than he ever planned to, when Neil is around.

And Neil laughs. So, it is just a little worth it.

Not enough to do it purposely, of course.

Neil turns to look at Andrew. In the moonlight, the blue of his eyes looks like the stars. Except Neil is closer—much, much closer—and Andrew does not mind the proximity. At least, not when it’s Neil.

They work like gravity. It is mostly unplanned; the way Andrew tilts his head and collides with Neil. But perhaps it is also inevitable. They cannot orbit each other for long.

They are both too heavy not to fall into one another.

Neil always hums, at first. Andrew is uncertain why; he only knows the result is a shared buzz between their lips. A vibration that Andrew can hear, when he thinks of Neil. As if Neil has his own note—a tiny piece of a greater song.

Andrew wonders what the song would sound like. He thinks it might have the tiny, pleased noise Neil makes within its melody.

A thought comes to mind. Intrusive, like all the rest. Andrew resists the urge to growl at it. He leans back, and Neil follow for half a second, like a moonstruck fool, and he _nearly_ falls off the wall.

“Do you have a death wish?” Andrew growls.

Neil stares right back. “I wasn’t aware you were death.”

That—

—that is impossible. Neil is impossible.

He should not fall into this so easily. He should not fall into Andrew so easily—Neil, with his scars and his mistrust, and his silence. Andrew should not give into him just the same.

Yet here they are.

“Shoulders and above.” Andrew tries to leave it at that. Tries to tell himself this is not important; this is survival and distraction. This is nothing.

When Neil looks down at his hands as if they are foreign, magical objects, Andrew knows that _nothing_ is a lie.

The next time he kisses Neil, Andrew is gifted the soft parting of Neil’s lips and the sigh that escapes them.

They taste like nothing. _And that’s a lie, too._

* * *

There is not much time, but somehow, Neil finds himself in Andrew’s room.

He had never seen it before, but he likes it. The room is tucked away in a corner of the second floor. The bedsheets are heavy and dark. The windows are shaded, though one of them looks out in the direction of the moon. Neil wonders if Andrew ever looked out at it and made wishes.

There isn’t a lot of time to think about that either, but Neil is happy to abandon the thoughts for the feeling of Andrew’s hand sliding up his back.

“You are an idiot.” Andrew pauses over one of the newest scars—a thin rope, left after a sword nicked him. Neil was fast enough to avoid it, but he was distracted by Nicky’s cry of surprise.

It ended well. Still, Neil is almost glad to have the scar, so long as Andrew is touching him.

“You like me because I am an idiot.” Neil feels a smile flicker on his lips. He meant it as a joke, but as he speaks, he finds it is likely true. Truer than Andrew wants to admit, at least.

Andrew responds with a well-placed pinch to Neil’s side. It is not sharp enough to be angry, but enough to send a shiver up Neil’s spine. He tilts his head and finds Andrew’s neck by his nose, pale and waiting.

It is more instinct than an actual thought process that leads Neil to close his lips over the smooth line of Andrew’s neck. The answering shudder that wracks Andrew’s body is more than worth the impulse.

Neil moves away only long enough to ask. “Was that—”

“Yes.” Andrew grinds the word out the same way he says _you are an idiot_ ; the same way he says _stop looking at me that way,_ the same way he ever says anything that matters. “You only stop when I say no.”

“You don’t have to say it, sometimes.”

Andrew untangles himself a little. Pulls back and finds Neil’s eyes. He must find something that satisfies him; he presses a finger to Neil’s cheek. Covers the little sigil, eyes half-hooded, and mutters, “Yes.”

Neil loses count of how many times he says _yes_. Andrew says it exactly thirteen times.

Of course, Neil is a little distracted when Andrew nearly rips Neil’s pants as he takes them off. So, Neil might be off by one or two.

Not that he minds.

* * *

There is a low ringing in his head. He blinks and pushes his face into his pillow.

More than anything else, Neil wishes he were in Andrew’s bed.

It takes a minute for Neil to realize that the ringing is not normal. Not even a little. He opens his eyes and realizes that it is evening; perhaps only an hour has passed since he returned to the Foxhole after a short job with Nicky.

The ringing echoes.

Neil pulls his arms out from under his sheets. They feel too heavy. A fresh wave of panic engulfs him; he yanks the sheets off and stares at his limbs. His clothes are still there, but he can see the scars on his body humming just a little too much to be normal.

The ringing rises in pitch. Neil presses his palms to his ears. It sounds like a crystal glass being struck; it sounds like the shrill note of a banshee. It sounds like death coming for him.

_Death._

He bolts from his bed and finds his clothes. They are thrown about as he digs for his pants and the pocket on the right side. The little red vial within.

Except now, it is no longer red—save for one drop at the bottom.

It rings at him and Neil closes his hand over it. He squeezes his eyes shut and knows he cannot escape it. Death is calling.

_Do you have a death wish? I wasn’t aware you are death._

Too much crashes into him. Neil finds himself curled over on the floor, the wood cold beneath his skin. He can smell Nicky’s flowers and the spiced meat Seth likes to make. Can hear the ring of glasses that Wymack washes and the songs Dan likes to sing.

He can feel the heat of a mug in his hands, with Renee’s tea. He can feel Kevin’s hand on his shoulder, while they hover in an alley after a job is finished.

He can see Allison standing before him, thankful and brilliant. He can see Aaron lounging in a chair, book in hand.

Neil can feel all his memories like the magic in his veins—only they are better. Softer. They fill him with a quiet peace and he thinks maybe this was truly why he came to the Foxes.

He can go, now. Neil will never go quietly—cannot simply accept anything, without trying—but he knows that he could.

If it comes to it—and _it will_ —Neil knows he could die. He would die. Not only for them, but because of him.

It will not be so painful to accept darkness, now. He has been given light.

* * *

It is not a nightmare. Not exactly.

Andrew wakes cold. It is sweat that clings to his back and makes the sheets stick. There is a weight to his body; a remembrance of something dark. Something oil-slick and choking.

This is what it feels like, when he uses someone else’s blood. It is a familiar possession. Only Andrew knows he has not taken from anybody, recently. So, he decides it is something he does not want to think about.

Andrew leaves his bed because he knows better than to force sleep or comfort. Especially now. He walks barefoot to the wall in the backyard; not just because he can look up at Neil’s window.

Absolutely not.

The wall is close. Better for any emergencies, but far enough that Andrew can find silence.

He wonders if Neil is asleep. If Neil is also uneasy, peering out his window and wondering whether he should go downstairs.

Andrew does not know that Neil is already gone. He will not know that anything has happened at all until it is too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm...doing a lot. I am so busy.  
> Here is the next installment! I hope you enjoy the little lull, because I'm sure you know where this is heading. I apologize in advance for what may happen to our poor half-elf...


	11. Locate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil is gone and there is only one thing to do.

Andrew comes inside to find a standoff happening in the dining room, and a bird.

A Raven.

Ichirou Moriyama is the eldest son. He is part of the city’s elite. Unlike Riko, he has no need to dirty his hands or walk the streets. He has no guild. He is a guild of his own.

The elder brother is interesting. Andrew knows he is rarely seen; Ichirou is the quiet type, working in shadow and keeping to himself. Where Riko carries the sludge of oil with him, staining the very ground he walks on, Ichirou is true shadow itself. Riko has only ever imitated the darkness. His brother is the darkness.

“I would say that it is a pleasure, but I assume that mockery is not polite,” Andrew says drily as he comes into the room. Wymack immediately closes his eyes for a moment, exhaustion crossing his face before he schools his features.

Kevin is pale as a sheet and lingering by the staircase. Andrew barely spares him a glance. He wants to know why no one has killed Ichirou yet. Why the man is there, too, but that’s not as important.

Ichirou casts a fleeting glance at Wymack. “Is this all?”

The man clearly has no patience for whatever Wymack has already said or suggested. Andrew watches Wymack struggle to bite his tongue and reply, “Yes. Now, what are you here for?”

“Professional courtesy,” Ichirou says patiently, but there’s a twitch of his mouth that Andrew thinks means he is half-lying. Ichirou looks at Allison. Andrew follows the man’s gaze and realizes she is the only one dressed—the only one who appears to have gone out, already. “One of your Foxes was preparing to file a report, when I happened upon her.”

“Report,” Wymack echoes. His gaze flicks to Allison. Andrew almost wants to slap the man for being stupid and giving away his ignorance.

Allison stares coolly back at Ichirou. Renee is at her side, Andrew realizes, calm but alert. “Yes. There was heavy magic used on the premises last night. Riko’s magic.”

Acid rises in Andrew’s throat. He remembers the not-nightmare. The choking and oil. He thinks about what Riko has done and what he can do.

He has one more reason to dispose of Ichirou.

“He has made his last mistake,” Ichirou says calmly. “You are not the only one to have noticed. He was not very patient.”

“So, you’re, what?” Matt glares openly. “Coming here to tell us it’s not your fault? Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“I do not have to forgive you,” Ichirou says smoothly. “And you do not have to believe me. But I suggest you hold your tongue, before I leave and take my professional courtesy with me.”

Kevin curls his shaking hand into a fist. Andrew watches him step forward, a shiver running up his body even as he lifts his chin.

How fascinating. _I wonder who taught him to do that?_

“What do you have for us, then?”

Ichirou barely glances at Kevin. He looks instead to Wymack. “It is my understanding that Riko has given Nathaniel to someone else, to be taken care of. He wishes to avoid scrutiny.”

_Nathaniel._ The name sends a ripple up Andrew’s spine. It is a cold, dead hand on his skin. He can hear the name breathed from desiccated lips, mold and rot caressing his cheek.

Andrew tastes copper on his tongue.

The Foxes all ignore the name. It’s not important yet, but Andrew stores it in a hidden place, thinking only of when he will find Neil. When he will get his hands on the half-elf, hold him to the ground, stop him from fading away.

“Who would he use?” Dan asks shortly. “You say he gave Neil away to avoid suspicion? He already made a mistake, didn’t he?”

“He gave himself away with his magic.” Ichirou waves a hand dismissively. “Riko has given him to his father.”

“His father.” Wymack’s reply sounds just as empty and hollow as the title. _Father._

Ichirou is lying, Andrew decides. The man has a personal stake in ridding the world of Riko. Not that Andrew can complain. All he knows is that Ichirou is giving the Foxes permission. They will not ignore that.

Ichirou raises an eyebrow. If he thinks anything of the Foxes’ confusion, he does not take the time to elaborate. “Yes. The Executioner will not be kind. He has always begrudged Nathaniel’s enslavement. He would have preferred to keep the elf’s power to himself.”

“Half-elf,” Andrew says automatically. He can feel Ichirou’s gaze slide to him, metallic and sharp.

He feels like blood, Andrew decides. Too rich and sweet, singing in some language Andrew cannot understand. Whatever Ichirou’s magic is saying is lost in translation. Not that Andrew really cares. He cares only about the misdirection—about Neil pretending Riko was the problem. Pretending that his enslavement was secondary.

“How do we find him?” Kevin asks, forcing his words out again.

“You might want to use the trinket.”

Kevin glances at Andrew, uncertain. Aaron is the one that presses a hand to his forehead, a stormy expression morphing his features. “Something he would have hidden,” Aaron mutters. “We will have one hell of a time finding it.”

Ichirou gathers the cloak on his arm, the rich fabric rustling as he artfully throws it over his shoulders. It fastens with silver clasps that Andrew recognizes. They are spiders.

“I have given you what you need.” Ichirou pulls his gloves on, the shining leather immaculate. “Do what you will—but do not give me a reason to return.”

* * *

Lola laughs. Her smoke and cloud linger around Neil, pulling at his skin, sticky and humid. He couldn’t get the stain off if he washed for a week.

Not that he’ll have the chance.

His magic is roaring. Neil spends most of his energy trying to keep it in, which means there is not much left to spend on silencing the screams. He does silence them as often as he can, though. Whatever is ripped from his throat is done so raggedly, as Neil curls his hands into fists and watches his blood pool on the floor.

He thinks of Andrew. _Your magic is not nothing_. Neil wishes he could have understood. Learned what it truly meant. Instead he is here, with his hands tied bound in iron and his skin on fire.

“Do you think these scars will stay? Or did the magic work too well?” Lola murmurs, her breath arid against his cheek. It whispers things to him—death and pain and despair.

It is a useless question. Lola has already begun to try her luck, with knife-sharp nails and the burn of her fingers. She enjoys pressing her thumbs to his wrists, watching the skin blister and darken. She enjoys the drip of his life onto the ground, red and vibrant.

“So, what is this? You decided it was time to make up for everything you could never do? They kept you locked up well, didn’t they? I wonder who let you out. Unless, of course, they didn’t. Unless you are wasting time and they are looking for you even now,” Neil hisses.

Lola’s scream of fury is inhuman. She is inhuman, of course, but with her somewhat-concrete form Neil doesn’t think about it often. Doesn’t like to think of it.

He prefers to avoid ruminating on the reaching shadows that flicker off Lola’s body or the flame he can hear whispering in his mind.

Instead, Neil thinks of the Foxhole. He thinks of the others and how they must be going about their days, now. How they might be enjoying an afternoon of slow work. He hopes they aren’t thinking of him. He hopes they assume he is busy.

He hopes Andrew will not question it. _Andrew._ It hurts more than it should; more than the carving nails or burning hands.

Leaving hurts.

He tries to remind himself not to think too much about it. Andrew will move on; after all, they weren’t anything important. There was no way. Neil is not important, and Andrew simply allowed him to stay on the roof, when the evenings were cold.

But Neil still feels loss in his chest like a cavity, gaping and hollow, reminding him of what he had.

“I wonder if anyone will miss you,” Lola muses. She draws a thin ribbon down his forearm with her burning hand. “Do you know who missed you, Nathaniel? Do you know who has always missed you?”

She leans in closer. Neil can feel her hot breath against his neck and he wants to pull away; can’t allow her close. Not when Andrew is the only one allowed there, with his determined fingers and patient pressure.

Neil shuts his eyes. Imagines the bedroom and Andrew, pale hair and ghostlike skin. The heaviness of his kisses; the absolute weight of his tongue in Neil’s mouth. The reality of his body, warm and solid, as he pressed them ever closer together.

He wants the memories to block out the rest. More than anything, though, he wants them to be the last things on his mind.

Lola laughs. “Daddy missed you, Nathaniel. He missed his little boy. His son. His _treasure._ ”

The proprietary curl of the word catches Neil like a hook. It drags his horrified eyes toward the stairs in the corner of the cellar, where heavy footfalls descend. Neil cannot look away. He is pinned in place by more than metal; he is restrained by his own fear, the bile in his throat rushing forth in a sharp reminder that this is reality. It is his reality, now.

The Executioner steps into the basement, axe in one hand and a cleaver in the other. Nathan faces his son, his eyes burning coal-red.

“Welcome home, Junior,” he whispers, and his words are brimstone-copper.

Neil would scream if he could, but all sound dies in his throat. All that leaves his mouth is a strangled knot of air as he gasps—for breath, for forgiveness, for a quick end. His father crosses the room, one rough hand reaching out.

Nathan pulls his son’s chin up, hand rough and heated and too much. “We have so much to speak about, Nathaniel. So much.”

The magic thrashed. Neil could not hold anything back; he opened his mouth, a strangled cry falling from his lips. His father’s hand shoved at him, pushing at his jaw, silencing.

“You know the rules,” the Executioner says quietly. The heavy metal of his axe grated against the floor, cold and warning. “Silence, Nathaniel. Silence or death.”

* * *

Andrew stands in the tiny loft room and tries not to allow the fury to grow. He has had enough of feeling.

“What are we looking for?” Seth turns in a circle, fists clenched at his sides.

Aaron shrugs. “Anything out of place. Anything that could be charmed.”

“That doesn’t help,” Seth mutters. “We don’t even know what he owned when he came here.”

“Just the clothes on his back,” Andrew says, mocking. He feels too sharp. Too bright. The world is incandescent; as if the stars have been pulled from the sky, too close and too luminous.

Seth opens drawers and combs through the closet. It looks much the same as it did before Neil arrived. Andrew paces away from them, stares down at the bed, resists the urge to reach out and touch it.

He never laid here. Refused, to himself, that comfort. Andrew only ever allowed Neil in his space, but they did not sleep in the same room. It was too close.

Now, he thinks all of it was too close.

_Little liar. What truth was real?_

Except Andrew knows. He always knew—knew from the way Neil would pull away from Wymack, or the way he held himself coiled tight. The way Neil never clarified what his plans were, or how he knew he could bring Riko down.

He was always the way, Andrew thinks. He made himself the key and the only person he ever gave it to was Andrew and that _isn’t fair._ It is not fair because Andrew didn’t know and if he had known, he would not have taken it the way he did. Taken Neil.

_But that’s a lie, just like all of his._

Andrew does not remember giving in—just as before—but his hand is on the sheets of Neil’s bed. He presses his palm to them; imagines the scent of Neil rising like smoke. Imagines how they must feel when they are warmed by his body.

He feels something hard.

Andrew reaches for the sheets and pulls them back, a resistance giving way as they come untucked. There, at the center of the bed, is a vial. It gleams with just one drop of bright red liquid, blinking hazily in the dimming room.

He does not move. It is fragile, he thinks, and far too precious. It is life. He can tell.

Aaron circles the bed quietly. Reaches out for it, but Andrew’s hand shoots out and he stops his twin. They are silent and Aaron stares back at Andrew, waiting.

Andrew picks up the vial. He can feel its heartbeat in his hand. Neil’s heartbeat.

He does not like how faint it is.

“We have to find him,” Seth says, his voice distant. “How do we find him?”

Aaron says something. They are talking but Andrew doesn’t listen. He strains to feel—to hear anything, from the little vial. He stares at the contents and then, before anyone can speak, or he can register his choice, he pops the cork off the top.

“Wait—"

Aaron’s protest is lost. Andrew tips the glass vial and lets the liquid fall onto his tongue and—

— _oh_ —

—he _knows_ , suddenly, with cinnamon and vanilla swirling in his mouth like a warm drink on a cold day. The warmth and spice flood his veins and he only knows the certainty it brings. The richness of Neil, like bone and embraces and a quick tongue flickering against the salt of Andrew’s skin.

Blood does not lie.

“Andrew.” Aaron is sharp. Insistent as he holds a hand out, stopping just short of touch. “What was it?”

_Nothing,_ Andrew thinks, _and everything._ It was all.

“I can find him.”

* * *

Nathaniel is cold, but he is always cold. Even the warmth of his magic does not touch him. It crawls through his veins, sluggish and reclusive, battered back by years of conditioning. Desperation. A wish to save something he never had.

“That’s enough.” Nathan waves dismissively.

Lola frowns. An argument lingers on her lips, but she draws back, still sneering at the crumpled boy in the chair.

Nathaniel looks down at his arms. Well—he does not look down. His head already hangs; his eyes do not properly see things and he is distant, so distant he can hardly reach himself. There is a memory eating at him, but he cannot hear it no matter how loudly it screams.

Nathan moves around the chair. He has his cleaver in hand. The axe is used publicly. For when executions are meant to thrill; to entice, the show of the swinging blade making the audience gasp and murmur.

The cleaver is for the silent cellars. The rat-infested cages with secondary citizens, their crimes and names not worth remembering. They die under the cleaver, and they are lucky if Nathan decides to make it quick.

“Hmm. No,” Nathan murmurs. He passes the cleaver to Lola. She moves away, and he crouches before Nathaniel, his hand pushing his son’s face this way and that. His mouth twists at the sight of the sigil. “You let them mark you. Like a commoner. Like street trash, caught for theft.”

_What did you steal, Nathaniel? What did my wolf steal? You know the price. You know you cannot run. Not from this…_

His memories are coming wrong. Coming in fragments, _beforeafternow_ an unintelligible tangle. They catch between his teeth as he clenches his jaw, so much blood and spit dripping from his jaws like gore from a dying animal.

Nathaniel is eating himself alive. Nathan doesn’t have much work to do.

Nathan pushes a block between Nathaniel’s feet. This—this is when the panic settles. The animal dread of impending death; the heightened sense of danger. The knowledge of entrapment. Escape is impossible, and Nathaniel can only struggle against himself.

“Now, you tell me…why did you run?” Nathan leans forward, arms on his thighs, hands dangling carelessly. Hands that kill. His breath is fire and death. His breath is metal against skin. “Tell me, Junior. Why did you run from your Master? You know what you did?”

“No.” It is the first word Nathaniel has managed. It bubbles in his throat, acid and fear. “No—”

“You are a disappointment,” Nathan says quietly. He twists Nathaniel’s face to him again. Forces contact—forces Nathaniel to look into coal-red eyes, their depths twisting with silent screams. “You have done this, Nathaniel. You should have stayed. You cannot run.”

“No—”

Nathan pulls at his face and it comes apart like a mask, so much rubber and paper crumbling with the tug. It slides away and leaves nothing but a burned face and those _eyes,_ those _burning eyes_ —

—and Nathaniel screams to face this monster, his father, his death, his life, everything unraveling over a burning lake.

Nathaniel hears the earth rumble; feels it crack and split open the way his father’s mouth does, an angry slash of black-red that says terrible, unimaginable things with its shrieking edges. He feels the earth coming down over him and knows he is already did.

All that’s left is to die.

* * *

They stand at the door to the abandoned home. Andrew’s hand holds the vial and as the Foxes pause, he considers what they might find. He thinks of what could happen.

He does not have time to think, because all they hear is a terrible, ragged scream—

— _Neil’s scream_ —

—and then the glass crushes in Andrew’s hand, shards pricking his skin open as he storms through the door with all the others.

The house smells. It smells terrible, like forgotten bodies and crumbling history. Andrew barely sees as he goes, but he sees the remains in a corner, scorched walls speaking of a fire and thick black oil speaking of Riko.

Andrew can hear words forming from the scream.

“ _No, no, don’t, wait, no—_ ”

He hears them, and he _burns_ ; he _wants_ to burn, wants to watch this pain and these things turn to ash. Wants to know that Neil is either safe or dead, because only those things would be better than this, and Andrew does not want to be selfish enough to hope that Neil would just hang onto life for him.

The basement door slams open. Andrew hardly notices Kevin swirling down the stairs in a flutter of feathers and black fabric, his hand shooting out to cast a spell.

He sees a few things.

He sees the man towering in the middle of the room, something sickeningly familiar about him but the rest _wrong,_ so wrong, his face transformed and haunted by whatever magic raised him. Andrew sees the woman in the corner. He can hear her shriek as she moves, furious energy and heat following her.

Andrew can see Neil tied to a chair, his body still smoking with magic and hurt, his scars thrumming weakly as new ones settle on his skin.

“It’s done!” Aaron shouts. There is shrieking everywhere; Andrew can hardly keep track of who is doing what. He thinks Nicky might be helping banish the woman, even if he can barely see through his tears. Kevin has the man contained, fingers flying as he pulls the threads of his spell tight.

Andrew does not care. All he cares about is Neil and he moves, unthinking, the blood in his palm dripping. He crouches by Neil, uses his free hand to brush Neil’s hair from his face. To look.

There is a startling emptiness there. A void of blue that Andrew hates as he looks back at Neil, his bloodied hand curling tighter.

“You are not Nathaniel,” Andrew says. He does not care about the way Matt beats back the creature in the corner or the way Allison is blocking the woman’s clawing hands. “You are Neil. You are a Fox, and we need you.”

There is a tiny flicker in the blue abyss. Andrew swallows the acid and smoke in the air and exhales it, breathing it out like everything else. Like he can take them to the roof this way. _We need you?_

“I need you.”

Andrew does not expect the words to be magic. They are not—at least, not immediately. Neil struggles; he claws his way to the surface, buried under so many feet of dirt and pain. He is not dead, but he always thought he was, and Andrew cannot change that.

He can only hope that Neil will answer his call and come back to life.

Neil takes a shuddering breath and like that—just like that—his scars pulse. His magic floods the world and Andrew feels its warmth like cinnamon and vanilla on his tongue. He feels the memories of Neil’s lips on his; Neil’s hands on his chest, gaze soft and wanting and _safe_.

There is silence and Andrew realizes the others feel it, too. Even as the shells of the demons collapse in the corner of the room, Neil’s magic inches its way toward the Foxes, pleading for purchase like vines climbing toward sunlight.

And when Andrew holds Neil’s face in his hands, Neil opens like a flower, blooming in tears and relief and something unspoken as he sags into Andrew’s steady weight.

“Love,” Neil gasps, and Andrew’s thundering pulse stills. The brightness of the too-real world recedes, and he only knows the burn of cinnamon and vanilla on his tongue, heady and enticing. “Thank you. I had to. I had to—”

Andrew does not need explanations. Cannot have them now, in the filthy basement with the ghosts of Neil’s past. Neil does not deserve this. Neither of them do.

So, Andrew slides his fingers over Neil’s lips. Finds his hands curiously trembling, while he memorizes again just how they feel beneath his hands. Their softness. The way they yield to him.

“Yes,” Andrew says quietly, because his answers are all he can give. “And no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed our special guest appearance...and I hope you will enjoy the last chapter left after this!!! It's been quite a ride...


	12. Fortunate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of anything is always difficult. The Foxes simply do their best to make it easier.

Neil wakes screaming, the first night.

He did not exactly submit to sleep; Seth noticed, watching the way Neil would jerk his head as he started to nod off in Abby’s small back room.

Seth thought Neil should sleep. He thought it was best to stay silent. To watch.

For perhaps five minutes, he is right—and then Neil bolts upright, a scream tearing from his throat. His body hums with unreleased magic but his scars are dim. He is forcing it back, years of practice keeping it all at bay, and Seth hates that.

“Neil. _Neil._ ”

The scream thins to a whine and Seth clambers onto the bed, doing his best to avoid Neil’s injured body. The magic did a lot to fix things, but not enough. Never enough.

 _Magic,_ Seth thinks. _And the ruin it brings._

Neil gasps, sucking in breath, his eyes wild and flat as he scans the room. He is looking for those creatures, Seth knows. “Neil. Look at me. It’s me. Look.”

It takes a long while for Neil to meet his eyes, gaze sliding like blood that rolls from a slick surface. When Neil finally manages to _look_ , his eyes focus and his breathing evens just a little.

“Seth.” Neil breathes, presses his eyes shut tight and opens them again. As if he expects everything to disappear.

Seth wonders how many times Neil did that, in the cellar of that rotted house.

“Yes. I’m here,” Seth says patiently. “You are safe. Sleep.”

Neil’s hand curls around Seth’s on the sheets. He is stronger than he looks and warm, too, like a furnace. Or perhaps like the fire inside him, eating him alive. The magic.

He needs to let it out, Seth thinks. More than just in anger or need, like he has before. With them.

“I know,” Neil whispers. Seth leans in, waiting. “Here is safe.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Seth finishes. Because _nightmares follow where footsteps can’t._

Well. He’ll just have to silence them.

Seth shifts, pulling himself closer to the head of the bed. He is much taller than Neil and it is awkward to curl himself around Neil’s smaller body, but that doesn’t matter to him. What matters is the way Neil shifts toward his warmth, still distant and bleak but _closer_ , his hands curled near his chest.

Maybe it will help; maybe it won’t. At least this way, he is closer. “Sleep,” he tells Neil again, quiet. “I will be here.”

Neil’s eyelids are already drooping. He exhales heavily and closes his eyes. He is silent for a long time and Seth is almost asleep when he hears Neil’s quiet whisper.

“I will be here, too.”

* * *

Nicky makes Neil so many pies that Neil thinks he won't be able to move when he finally rolls out of bed. Allison determinedly checks on his scars with Renee; they both offer to work on fixing them, but Neil doesn't mind. They are reminders. Aaron just lingers, quiet, a passerby that allows Neil the silence he needs, sometimes.

Dan sings him to sleep, sometimes. Neil wakes to Matt petting his head.

In the end, it seems that the Foxes are not quite the uncouth, ragtag guild that the city imagined them to be. Neil cannot find it in himself to complain.

Andrew comes a few times. He stays to watch Neil sleep or guard the door. He never says anything, and Neil is always too tired to force himself awake. Most times, it is simply quiet.

He tries not to be disappointed. Tries not to want more, from Andrew or himself. They are at a strange place and besides, Neil has something else he must do. _Magic._

Magic heals quickly, and Neil has always been quick to recover, anyway. Three days after the cellar, he walks out of Abby’s bedroom.

“Hey. No,” Wymack says from the bar, immediately moving toward Neil.

Neil easily skirts away from the man, following the opposite wall toward the front door. “I am—”

“You are not fine!” Wymack yells. He is cursing as he tries to clamber over the bar. “Hey!”

He is right, of course, but Neil has something to do.

He is still alive. Neil is alive but so is Riko, somewhere in the city, and Neil knows the truth. Knows Riko wanted to send the executioner after the Foxes.

This will not stand.

Neil has been saving up his magic; he has been pushing away every rise he has felt since he was taken. Hiding the scraps beneath his torn skin and in the spaces of his cavernous heart. He has built a well of magic, roaring for release, and he is quite certain who he is going to turn it on.

Perhaps he should have expected it. He only makes it halfway toward the markets before there is a whisper of darkness ahead of him, swirling like smoke out of the shadows.

Neil considers splitting his magic. If he must, he thinks it will not be an issue.

Ichirou has always been more pleasant to deal with. Perhaps by virtue of his absence. Neil rarely saw the elder brother, but he is aware of what Ichirou can and will do. Every exchange is a calculated game. There is always an answer that will win him, but it is rarely what one wants to give.

“They were successful. I doubted,” Ichirou murmurs. He is still half-shadow, edges swirling and blurred. He seems distracted.

Neil could kill him, then.

“You told them,” Neil says instead.

Ichirou tilts his head. It is as close to a shrug as he can imitate. “Riko was stupid. Indiscreet. He has never been the pinnacle of our achievements; I only thought time would instruct him.”

 _Well._ Neil doesn’t know how to respond. _Yes_ seems too agreeable, so he simply nods, letting Ichirou guide the conversation. This is not what Neil expected.

“This morning, Riko was preparing another attack,” Ichirou says bluntly. He pulls his hand out of the shadows and suddenly—

—suddenly, Riko is _there_ , a silent snarl on his lips and a frenzied light in his eyes.

Riko has never been physical intimidating. On his knees, he is even less so.

Ichirou stares down at his brother as if he is staring down at a dog. A street mongrel. “He was prepared to bring even more scrutiny upon my family—not just the Ravens. I am sure you are aware the guild is being inspected.”

Neil does not answer. His heart is jammed in his throat. He knows where this is going; he can see, and yet he cannot turn away. He cannot leave.

“I have come to you in a show of faith,” Ichirou says patiently. “This ends here.”

 _No,_ Neil thinks hysterically, _those are not good words to hear, they aren’t_ —

—and then Ichirou steps from the shadows and reaches forward, his hand curling almost delicately in the air, and he—

—snaps his brother’s neck, sudden and loud, the echo reverberating in Neil’s ears. There is no touch, no blood, no careless violence; only the contained fury of a directed attack and the instant loss of life.

“It is done.”

And Ichirou steps back, the shadow taking him and Riko but leaving all the darkness in the world. It is not _enough_.

 _Am I shaking?_ Amusing. Maybe it is the magic, Neil thinks, frustrated at being robbed its chance to burst free. Maybe it is the voice he cannot let out, although his mouth falls open. He stands, and he _shakes_ , his eyes never moving from the cobblestones, and life goes on beyond him.

The people beyond the alley continue to move. The Foxes are somewhere, carrying out assignments or perhaps browsing shops in town. Wymack is probably grumbling to Abby about Neil’s departure. Life just _moves_ , and Neil _doesn’t._

He can’t.

“—il. Neil.”

Andrew. Neil looks up to see Andrew, the displeased line of his mouth and the sharpness in his green-brown eyes. Andrew, with the bracers on his arms and the black cloak on his shoulders. _Safe_.

The voice hiding in Neil’s chest comes out in a gasp. “ _Andrew_.”

There. It is a flicker—a tiny flame, Neil remembers, from the cellar—and it says more than just _worry_ or _care_. It is buried so deep Neil could never hope to dig it out; wouldn’t want to, for fear of pain. Yet it is there and when Neil sees it, he wants to speak it again.

_Love._

“Please—”

“Don’t,” Andrew says sharply. He reaches out and his hands find Neil’s face, resting on his cheeks, holding him steady. “Do not use that word. Do not beg from me.”

“Will you hold me,” Neil chokes out. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

Neil does not realize, until Andrew’s arms are tight around him, what he missed. The sensation of drifting—the unreality of everything, since the cellar—seems to fall into place. Neil is _grounded_ , finally, except not entirely. He feels unearthed; dirt falls from his mouth, a ragged sob as he sucks in the fresh air around him for the first time.

It is, Neil thinks, what being _alive_ feels like.

* * *

“It’s done.” Neil sits next to Kevin on his bed, trying not to look too hard. If he does, he can see the cracks, and—

—well. Neil can only carry so many at a time.

Kevin looks bleakly down at his hands. “Is it?”

The question is how much to say. Tell. Neil thinks about the alley; about Ichirou in the shadows, Riko with his snarl and violent eyes—

—the _sound_ —

—right. Cracks.

“He is dead.”

Kevin flinches. Looks to Neil, the little line between his brows deepening. He whispers, “Do you know?”

“I do.” _I saw._

Silence. Kevin does not live in it the way Neil does; he wears so much on his face. It his hunched shoulders and pressed lips.

Neil has never known how to comfort, perhaps because he was never comforted. Yet he thinks now, he knows a little. Can think of Seth and Andrew and what they have done for him.

It is harder to start, but Neil has suffered enough not to care. “Can I touch you?”

Kevin looks at him, startled, and there is a small fear in his gaze that Neil recognizes. The look of someone who thinks they have been discovered. _Oh, Kevin._

Neil pulls Kevin in. They are two cracked statues, he thinks, pretending to be immovable and staunch and perfect. But Neil feels Kevin come back to life in his arms, soft, the cracks giving way to the curl of Kevin’s fingers in Neil’s shirt and the way he tucks his head into Neil’s shoulder.

“We are alive,” Neil says, although he still isn’t sure. He is still one foot in the grave, the basement weighing heavy on his shoulders. “You will survive this.”

Kevin laughs, quiet and broken and perhaps half-real. _Half is more than none._ “Not if I can help it.”

“Dramatic,” Neil mutters, but he holds Kevin tighter. “You are not going anywhere. You still owe me a job.”

“Sure,” Kevin says. Neil thinks he may be smiling. “And more than that.”

* * *

Eden’s is not where Andrew thinks Neil should be, but Neil was persuasive.

That, and he came out of his room dressed, as if he were defying Andrew to say no when he was wearing a nearly-sheer shirt.

The Foxes are not quite content, yet. They are all still vibrating on another frequency, like a glass that has been struck and still echoes its ringing note. At least at Eden’s, they can ring into the din. Perhaps lose some of that painful note.

Neil lounges in his chair, peering over the crowd with lidded eyes, and Andrew forces his gaze back onto his glass. _Not now._

“I have a question.”

“Fantastic,” Andrew mutters into his glass. He starts to drink, avoiding Neil’s gaze for just a moment longer. _Stupid._ He is not going to avoid those black-rimmed blue eyes for long.

_I should tell Allison to keep her kohl to herself._

That is absolutely a lie.

Neil shifts in his seat. “Do you still want me?”

Andrew comes dangerously close to choking. By some grace, he manages to hide his stumble. He instead carefully sets his glass on the table, watching the liquid ripple. When he finally looks up at Neil, he is unsurprised.

Someone that charges to his death could be classified as fearless. _Or stupid_.

“Why are you asking this?”

“That’s another question.” Neil smiles. “That’s not how the game works. But—I ask because I need to.”

“Why would you need to?” _Stop asking questions._

Neil’s gaze sharpens. “You know. Things have changed.”

“Then, it should be you who answers,” Andrew says shortly. He blames the alcohol; blames Eden’s for his loose tongue and the way his heart thuds. He has not been avoiding this conversation, _but_. “Do you? Still want this?”

Neil seems displeased. It’s the _this_ that does it, Andrew thinks. He watches Neil stand from his chair, beckoning.

Andrew has never followed Neil—not exactly—but then, Neil has never led. Andrew ghosts his footsteps, watching the way Neil threads his way through the crowd as if it is water and not a bustling mass of bodies. He is careful and watchful, avoiding elbows and laughter and sloshing drinks.

They arrive in the bedroom. _The_ bedroom. Neil closes the door behind them and walks to the window, perching on the sill as if he is preparing to leap. Some irrational part of Andrew’s mind thinks it is true—or perhaps not so irrational; he remembers the key—and so Andrew steps forward, unthinking, his hand finding the back of Neil’s neck.

Neil looks up, surprised. Andrew’s instinct is to pull away, burned; he has not _touched_ , not since the cellar, and for a good reason—

—but then Neil tilts his head, pushes into Andrew with heavy eyes like a cat, a pleased curl to his lips. He unwinds just a little, the potential hum of his magic lowering.

This _is,_ and it _should not be_ , and Andrew cannot ask anything but, “Why?”

“Why,” Neil echoes, his voice a murmur as he nuzzles Andrew’s hand. _God, he really is a cat._ “Why do I want you? Your kisses. Those are good.”

“That’s not—”

“Your eyes,” Neil continues, his voice still low, as if he is confessing something secret. As if they are not already alone. “They are sometimes green and sometimes brown and always both. Did you know?”

“I know what I look like,” Andrew says, but his voice shakes and he does not know how to stop this; the endless flow of _truth_. He cannot think why this matters or why he _feels_ it so much.

Neil grins. “You don’t. Not how beautiful it is when you blush— _you do_ —and I kiss you. I want you because of your blush. Because of your frown, because you try to pretend, and you can’t—”

“Lies. Slander,” Andrew manages, but his voice seems distant. Maybe it is, but he is _here_ ; his hand feels molten and Neil’s skin is velvet underhand, soft and inviting.

“I want you because of your hands,” Neil whispers. He is on his feet and Andrew does not recall when this happened; all he knows is that Neil stands before him, a breath away. “Your hands. Strong—but not hard. They _keep_ me. I never have to worry about them and I—I only wonder where they are if they _are not with me_.”

 _Too much,_ Andrew wants to say, but it’s _not enough_. Andrew does not have the words to respond. He cannot think of how to begin, except for the heat he wants to chase into Neil’s mouth.

So, he starts where he always does. Where it began.

“Yes or no.”

“Yes,” Neil whispers, the little smile curving his lips. “I want you, Andrew.”

It feels as if Andrew has been waiting—maybe since before the cellar, even. This should not feel so momentous and yet it _does_. Neil’s hands curl on the windowsill and Andrew pulls them onto his waist, watching the flush on Neil’s cheeks as he leans in.

Gravity, again. Like leaping from a roof to catch a key, or bumping into each other on the street, or Neil pushing Andrew out of the way of an arrow. Anything and everything, just _them_ , the universe finally sliding into place.

Cinnamon and vanilla. Neil tastes like cinnamon and vanilla—like the little vial—and also _honey_ , curling sweet on his tongue. Andrew thinks there is a hum in his throat he cannot control and when it reverberates between them, Neil’s fingers curl in his shirt, a pleased sigh escaping his mouth.

They are slow, because they have all the time in the world, now. Neil shifts back onto the windowsill, his legs parting to allow Andrew closer. They are intertwined, arms and legs and something invisible. Andrew curls his fingers through Neil’s hair and slides his tongue along every moan that escapes.

There is a hum in his blood. It is not dangerous, but it distracts Andrew enough to pull back.

Neil follows him like a drunk idiot and Andrew has to concentrate _very_ hard on not kissing him again.

“What?”

Andrew looks down. Neil follows his gaze—

—right to the pleasantly earth-orange glow emanating from his scars, making his golden skin luminous.

“Oh,” Neil breathes. He flexes his fingers experimentally, as if they are not his. “What…”

“Do you think—” Andrew stops to clear his throat. His voice is too low. “Does it…change.”

“What?” Neil looks up, brow wrinkled. Andrew wants to slap himself. _You chose this for yourself._

“When—with what you feel. Does it change,” Andrew bites out.

A smile twitches on Neil’s lips. _The bastard. He knew._ Neil at least has the grace to duck his head apologetically, wiggling his fingers. “No. It’s never changed.”

Andrew does not know what to make of it. But then—

—then again, maybe it doesn’t matter. Neil’s hands are just the same and Andrew never cared much for the blue, anyway. It was bright. This—

— “This is better,” Andrew says plainly, as if it is not a change they cannot explain. Another thing that Neil does not know about himself and should not have to figure out alone. “It suits you.”

Neil’s eyes widen, and the smile returns, fitting perfectly under the redness of his cheeks. “Andrew. I do believe that was a compliment.”

“Shut up.”

“Keep my mouth busy,” Neil challenges, the smile curling into a wide grin, and so Andrew does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the ride. Really, I would dedicate so much time and writing to this AU that it's insane, but...I know there are plenty of fantastic AUs out there already!  
> Thank you SO MUCH to all the readers that left kudos or commented. Really, your feedback has a special place in my heart and it always helps me on hard days. I reread your comments so often, just for a moment of feeling uplifted. You are all the real magical ones, here.


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